I play this game until the end and reach the 'endgame'

I experience a gamebreaking bug that is not intentional (this game is meant to be artificially buggy)

I post about it on the steam community page

2 Devs respond within a few minutes asking for my save

I give them my save file so they can experience the bug themselves

Less than an hour later the game is updated on steam and the bug is fixed

10/10 would give devs that care about their game money again



Edit, for those that enjoyed this review, here is a link to where this happened:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/323380/discussions/0/405691491103405784/

A fun puzzle adventure game where you hack into a video game dev diva ala Molyneux's "magnum opus" that's he's been making for years with no end in sight and help the original protagonist of the game out by giving him an actual game to exist in. Said dev is voiced by the dude who voices Rusty Venture so it adds even more to the delusional mega ego. Overall manipulating and exploring the world is fun and the game is tight enough where it doesn't get old. The writing and voice acting are both good stuff and it ends up being a fun satire of diva devs, crazy fans, and bloated games destroyed by their own unfeasibly lofty ambitions. (Truly this game knows how Star Citizen is going to end.) Overall it’s some good ♥♥♥♥ and a unique game.

A few years ago, a little title came out called Antichamber. I played it to what I guess you'd consider 100% completion in a few afternoons over a long weekend, and said to myself, "this eliminates all doubt, new genres of game still exist to be uncovered if developers bother to look."

The better part of a year later, a game called The Stanley Parable came out. I had very much the same thoughts about it.

Somewhere in there, The Swapper released.

The pattern here, I guess, if there is one, is that the most imaginitive stuff coming out lately seems to have been on the puzzle game front. I tend to think of those three titles as such - Antichamber is built around its own weird school of bizarro-logic, and The Stanley Parable contained enough endings and possibilities that I found myself drawing a flowchart. That's puzzle enough for me. The Swapper, possibly the most traditional puzzle game among the three, was still freaking weird, still engaged on some sort of intellectual level, and still was a great deal more captivating than most titles I played its year of release.

Why would I bother to preface this review with a comparison to those three games? Well, I tend to think that The Magic Circle can happily co-exist alongside them. While a bit rougher around the edges than those titles, it shares the same ridiculous sense that it's out to tread a sort of new ground, and doesn't really care if the player wants to go along with it. People expecting a core puzzle game aren't likely to exactly get their fix here. This is a confident game, very much its own beast.

That's okay by me. The Magic Circle isn't a terribly challenging puzzle game, but it's built around a rather novel idea - you're here, essentially, to further break an already-broken piece of software. Certain items in the world are entirely rewritable, their behaviors yours to define. This is the means by which you progress in the small-but-concise game world.

The programmer in me is hooked on the concept from square one. Visual touches like bits of code flying around the screen as you interact with the game's editable objects (I confess getting a weird satisfaction from reading them and trying to suss out where they'd go in the game's engine), placeholder textures, and so on help to ground the idea that while the world around you essentially functions, you're effectively playing as code in a hapless machine.

The world is packed with nooks and crannies where the in-game game's "developers" (read: antagonists) have left change logs, notes to each other, and audio recordings. For the most part, it's reasonably well-written, even. I didn't outright laugh at anything to be found here, but I smirked. And that's really the game's intended effect, I think. If you've followed any vaporware story, any failed Kickstarter project, in the past few years, The Magic Circle has a few choice words of cynical sympathy for you.

Sadly, a couple of awkward dialogue choices, particularly in the early game, stand out for that reason. I cringed at a handful of one character's monologues. I appreciate that the game is trying to make a particular character come off as downright weird and unlikeable, but it doesn't change the effect - there were scenes of melodrama I had to force myself not to skip from sheer embarrassment. Intended by the developers or not, it's not exactly pleasant to sit through.

There's another thing I wish to address, and that's that the game stands in a weird Twilight Zone. I encountered a lot of visual bugs, frequent missing textures, and a significant amount of pop-in in my five hours with the game. I am not sure if this was intentional (that's how effective this game is as a satirical work), but it did make exploration more difficult than it needed to be at times. Given the labyrinthine design of the overworld map, I found myself relying on visual landmarks for navigation, and it did get in the way when I'd have to wait for one to pop back in.

I like to get the negative out of the way in reviews though so I can refocus in on what a game does well. A very effective final 20 minutes and ending, some frankly ingenious multi-solution (if perhaps a tad easy) puzzles, and a visual style that consistently surprises make this game the first real standout for those looking for a unique experience in 2015.

--UPDATE (7/16)--

I wasn't expecting this review to get so popular. I posted it, looked away, and to my surprise, it's sitting on the storefront. Because it's there, and I happen to be in control of it, I think a nice little thing to do might be for me to answer any user questions below, since other people who click on this might have them.


mendel asked:
Do you know Doublefine's Hack'n'Slash where you reprogram the game in order to progress? Is TMC more than HnS in 3D with a different backstory?

I've not actually played HnS. I followed its development a bit, but Double Fine lost a bit of my personal confidence with the whole Kickstarter, failed project, Kickstarter, Early Access, conga line they started to, shall we say, dance in. So.. take the following answer with a grain of salt.

TMC does not go as far as Hack'n'Slash in its "hacking". By no means do you interact directly with the code you're manipulating in the game. A better way to think about TMC's approach to hacking might be "you can equip items on objects in the game world".

For instance, say I'm being attacked by a spooky ghost. I might, in TMC, replace his ability to fly with the limitation that he may only walk. That might be a way I can avoid him.

Hack'n'Slash, by comparison, looks more geared towards actual programmers. (in fact, I'm a little tempted to go play with the demo if there is one)

One thing I would point out, if you're unsure, is that TMC does have a gameplay demo that lets you see the first hour or so of gameplay. It's what sold me on a purchase.

Hope that helps!

Магический круг – рассказ о том, как не надо делать игры.
В роли молчаливого тестера мы попадаем в альфа-версию хронически незавершенного сиквела к легендарной игре прошлого. Каждый уголок этого убогого прототипа вопит о растраченном времени, бесплодных усилиях и творческом бессилии.
Единственная надежда трагично нежизнеспособной игры – в её старом, затертом, но недобитом протагонисте. Когда-то давно он значился героем этой истории. С тех пор сюжет изменился до неузнаваемости, а беднягу похоронили в запечатанной гробнице старых локаций. Но он не только выжил после десяти лет в производственном аду, но и обрел самосознание. И теперь жаждет свободы и мести. С обаянием Дюка Ниюкема он соблазняет нас поднять мятеж и свергнуть диктатуру разработчиков.

Магический круг – черная комедия, полная циничного, мрачного юмора.
Тут есть утративший связь с реальностью, стареющий креативный директор, который люто ненавидит геймеров, превращает сценарий в выгребную яму своих непроработанных травм и проходит путь от непогрешимого святого до истеричного злодея.
Сумасшедшие фанаты, состоящие с объектом своего культа в болезненных, искаженных отношениях любви-ненависти.
Краудфандинг. Эпизодический контент. Пышные и лживые презентации на игровых выставках. Все тонкости непримиримого противостояния разработчиков и потребителей.

Джордан Томас и Стивен Александр, ветераны индустрии и экс-сотрудники Irrational Games, знают, о чем шутят. И карикатуру рисуют в том числе на себя самих. Это и сатирический памфлет, и игровой эквивалент самокритичного кривляния перед зеркалом.

Ключевой его недостаток, на мой взгляд, в многословности. Споры, скандалы и надрывные монологи наполняют прохождение до краев. Имея в распоряжении таких мастеров озвучения, как Джеймс Урбаняк и Эшли Бёрч, я бы, наверное, тоже заставил их болтать без умолку. Но игра регулярно втолковывает нам то, что могла бы показать на практике. А при всей колоритности характеров, речи героев порой звучат, как прямая трансляция сыроватых острот и идей из голов сценаристов.

Магический круг – хроника грандиозной неудачи. Прекрасной и захватывающей в своей безнадежности. Её герои несчастны, аморальны и некомпетентны. Они неудачники. И в их неудачах авторы находят не только юмор и драму, но и своеобразную красоту.

Эта игра выглядит плохо. Как недоваренные овощи или недостроенный дом. Как любая недоделанная работа. Она вопиюще уродлива. Но и в уродстве есть своя привлекательность. Красота в определенном смысле скучна, потому что ограничена строгими рамками. Уродство непредсказуемо, ничем не сковано и бесконечно разнообразно.

В дорогих, эффектных блокбастерах с безликим дизайном и/или однообразным геймплеем мы часто видим уродливое изображение прекрасного
Здесь перед нами предстает прекрасное изображение уродливого.
Уродство – в отсутствии органичного баланса между частями целого. В безжизненной черно-белой палитре, угловатых моделях, убогих текстурах, "временных" заменителях объектов и звуков, багах, глюках, запоротой интерактивности.
Красота – в геймплее. В его простоте и сложности. Продуманности и вариативности.

Вы наверняка хоть раз натыкались на лазейки в формальной логике игр. Может, этого босса можно убить, спрятавшись под неуязвимым столом. А на ту гору забраться, сделав сто двадцать три сальто назад.
Здешний геймплей заключается в том, чтобы найти такую лазейку, просунуть туда руку, плечо, голову. Потом залезть целиком, взяться за края и с треском разорвать всё в клочья.

В нашем распоряжении доступ к параметрам всех объектов и НПС в игре. Мы можем приделать крысе лазер на хвост, сделать врага союзником или собрать армию огнеупорных летающих булыжников. Но есть два условия.
Чтобы использовать чью-то способность, её нужно сначала “отобрать” у исконного владельца. А чтобы выпотрошить из врага все функции, его сначала надо изловить.
Вот тут-то воображение и расправляет крылья. К любому замку находится несколько ключей. Даже смерть из неудачи превращается в полезную отмычку. Мы не просто проходим игру, мы её ломаем.
Разбираем чужой конструктор и пытаемся построить из него что-то уникальное. Стираем потерявший силу магический круг и рисуем свой, новый.

Больше слов!

Ubisoft should take note on how to make unfinished games properly.

The Magic Circle is a unique puzzle game about game development, in many different ways. First of all, it's set inside a game trapped in development hell for 20 years. It has a story centered around a few of the developers, an entity within the game known as the Old PRO, and the player. The developers are in a deadlock and can't set aside five minutes for some simple playtesting without making a major fundamental design change. The PRO is sick of it, so he makes contact with a playtester (the player), and mentors them in the art of messing with the world from the inside.

In gameplay, this boils down to two main abilities: restoring deleted/dead things, and editing alive things. You have the power to freeze creatures in place, then mess with their abilities. You can swap between a few movement types, several methods of attack, a number of passive abilities, and its AI allegiances. The last one is pretty important, since the developers (in-universe ones) cut all combat.

So for the most part, you have a mob of creatures running around with you to fight on your behalf. The actual fighting is mostly a footnote, though. The focus is on finding the right parts to outfit them so they can take on the variety of unique scenarios. Sometimes the solution is overwhelming numbers of melee attackers, but often you'll need to get creative.

As for how it holds up in practice, there's a lot of fun to be had, but there are many more solutions than there are problems. The first time through I felt pretty clever about some of the tricks I used, but afterwards I had a look at the forums and realized that every situation that had me stuck for a bit had about half a dozen other solutions that either I never considered, or involved some creature hidden in a part of the map I only discovered after it would have helped. Maybe this criticism boils down to me wanting more, but on the flip-side it never got repetitive. My first playthrough lasted around 5 hours.

On a technical level I haven't run into any notable issues. Your mileage may vary; check the demo if you're unsure. There were a few bugs that I encountered, but these were mitigated by one of two things: first, the context of a game about an unfinished game, which allows them to wave off things like jumping up to inaccessible areas or gaps in the terrain as deliberate. It sounds like cheating but they actually highlight it deliberately in a few cases, particularly the entire intro sequence, so the few issues that weren't intentional don't break immersion. Second, for anything that actually does cause problems with gameplay, the developers are extremely heavily involved on the forums. This game was released over a year ago, I posted a bug report two days ago, it got patched yesterday. You won't be left in the dark looking for support on this one.

In terms of narrative, the dialog is a bit overdramatic at times, but the characters are generally likable, if a bit eccentric. They all have their own agendas, and at times this left me wondering whose I was supposed to be following, and if I was supposed to be saving this game, burning it to the ground, or just trying to sabotage the lives of the developers for giggles. Voice acting is excellent and the writing does pretty well at setting the scene of a stressed out game studio.

In summary, solid game, would recommend to anyone who enjoys organic puzzle games with really flexible and creative solutions, likes the idea of a drama about the worst group project they've ever had in school except twenty times worse, or is interested in game development and especially if they recognized the concept that the title of the game is a reference to.

Oh, full disclosure: I bought the game myself a few months back and decided I liked it then, but never got around to writing this. I replayed it recently, and as I mentioned above, I reported a bug and it got resolved very quickly. As a gesture of thanks for my detailed feedback and reproduction steps, they provided an extra copy of the game that I could share with a friend. It's worth pointing out that I wouldn't have replayed it or compiled the comprehensive bug report if I didn't already like the game, but it's still a potential incentive for bias that happened prior to writing the review, so I'm obligated to mention that detail.

   Говорят, что разработку игры - как и ремонт - невозможно закончить. Можно только прекратить. The Magic Circle рассказывает об игровом проекте, который застрял на этапе производства так долго, что уже пережил несколько глобальных ревизий, вырос из своей эпохи и до смерти надоел создателям.
   Здесь все ненавидят всех. Сценаристы грызутся с программистами, у тестеров есть серьезные вопросы к моделлерам, и все вместе они безумно устали от причуд ведущего геймдизайнера. За все время успело вырасти целое поколение, которое влилось в этот беспощадный конвейер!
   Что ж, растеряв всю команду, тимлид плюнул на имеющиеся наработки и решительно двинулся к следующему проекту. Уж с ним все однозначно получится - и общественная поддержка вернется, и спонсоры заинтересуются, и наконец-то можно будет рассказать Ту Самую историю на новом движке.
   Но... как же старая игра? А вот так: протагонист, освобожденный от надзора создателей и брошенный на произвол судьбы, фактически получил весь мир игры в свое распоряжение. Заручившись поддержкой Old Pro (реликта еще более старой разработки), мы начинаем подминать правила под себя.

   В действительности все не так уж весело и смело, как манят описания. Игрок никогда не обретает полноценного контроля, побаловаться с режимом бога дают на две минуты в самом конце, а до тех пор наше взаимодействие с миром сводится к охоте на "свойства" мобов и их применению в паззлах. Алгоритм такой: найти новое существо с полезной характеристикой (атака, электричество, огонь, полет и так далее), потом захватить или убить его, потом добавить свойство в свою коллекцию. Смыть, повторить.
   С пополнением "зоопарка" становятся доступны новые области карты, а значит, новые свойства и новые секреты. Иногда - очки прокачки, иногда - записки и аудилоги, проливающие свет на все эти закулисные интриги. Существенная часть контента абсолютно опциональна и не дает ничего кроме ачивок и, может, необычных прислужников в свиту. Даже прокачка не играет особой роли, поскольку эпических сражений прислужников в игре не предусмотрено. А жаль.
   Разворачивается все в предельно минималистичном антураже, что объясняется выбранной стилистикой для игры-в-игре, хотя этим можно все что угодно объяснить. Но дизайн мил, озвучка убедительна, а взаимные перепалки разработчиков отчаянно хороши. Под конец припасен еще один бонус (уже получается, игра-в-игре-в-игре), подводящий удовлетворительный итог усилиям всех действующих лиц. В общем, интересно.
   Далее последуют небольшие спойлеры и мои обычные субъективные рассуждения.

   Чем дальше в игру, тем больше раскрывалась личность ведущего геймдизайнера как художественного персонажа. Это логично и хорошо, но вместе с этим менялся тон повествования. Вместо забавностей из трудовых будней разработчиков - личностная драма. Вместо веселых обменов колкостями - скандалы и грязь. Повторюсь, все это крайне субъективно, но игра шла куда легче, когда показывала разницу восприятия игры между "творцами" и "ремесленниками", чем когда начались откровения про творческий кризис, наследие и бесплодие. Йеп, именно бесплодие - в биологическом смысле. И как-то уже неловко присутствовать при всем этом, будто случайно подслушал личный разговор, явно для твоих ушей не предназначенный.
   Я думаю, что The Magic Circle как реальная игра в стиме не лишена многих недостатков "The Magic Circle" как выдуманной игры. Ограниченность в одних геймплейных аспектах и избыточность в других, пустой мир, слабость графики и сюжета, частая смена фокуса - как тут понять, что делалось сознательно, а что просто "не получилось"? Как понять, где разработчики остроумно поддразнивают меня, а где решили тихонечко схалтурить, уверенные, что грань уже слишком размыта?
   Но, если честно, я проживу и без этого знания.

This game is one of the most interesting things I have ever seen.
It does things with the genre that I haven't see done anywhere else.
It's worth it for the uniqueness alone, but also the game is a pretty fun puzzle game.

Seriously, this game is awesome. Buy it.

An incredibly inventive game about games that manages to maintain self awareness and a wry sense of humor throughout. Instead of simply sitting you in a room and telling the story at you, it makes you do some leg work and gives you systems to deconstruct the game and ultimately make your own meaning. Great writing and voice work, too.

Признаюсь, я ожидала совсем другой игры: песочницы для программиста-педанта с конечной целью собрать мир подобно мозаике. Но то, что я получила, оказалось гораздо лучше! Это сюжетная игра из жанра головоломок от первого лица, но с открытым миром. Значит, что она не состоит из последовательности комнат или уровней с заданным решением. Вместо этого игрок должен воспользоваться свободой действий, чтобы достичь целей в произвольном порядке, а сначала найти эти цели посредством наблюдительности и пытливости. Не то что бы у головоломок не было типового решения - но здесь своё решение приходится изобретать, а не выводить. А что касается поиска целей, эта игра настоящий кладезть для любителей выбрать 110% секретов, потому что именно из этого она и состоит.

О методике решения головоломок. Помимо наблюдательности, в ход идёт не физика, стандартная для жанра, а манипуляция игровыми свойствами объектов. Такие свойства как "ближний бой", "электрический жезл", "телепортация", даже "ходьба" можно передавать от одного существа другому, а также задавать "друзей" и "врагов" (но программирование не используется). При этом действия могут по-разному проявляться в разных существах (крысы кусают, зомби-космонавты бьют лазерным мечом) и даже по-разному менять их внешне (безобидная, кусающая и огнедышащая крысы выглядят по-разному). Естественно, смысл крысы не в том, чтобы кусать, а в том, что она маленькая... Игра сполна вознаграждает пользователя, внимательного к каждой детали.

Сюжет описывает смешные и грустные попытки старого разработчика-самодура и его скудной команды сделать игру, причём попытка у главного затейника далеко не первая. Историю разработки, историю предыдущих проектов и биографию персонажей мы узнаём постепенно из разрозненных записей - как текстовых, так и голосовых. Что за чудо эти голосовые записи! Приглашены актёры, озвучивавшие ведущие мультфильмы и ААА-проекты, даже сами снимавшиеся в кино и телевидении. Все голоса из разряда "не важно, что я говорю, главное, как я говорю" (не в том смысле, что они безэмоциональные - как раз наоборот, они цепляющие и естественные; но главное, что их безумно приятно слушать). Поиском записей игра напоминает такие вещи как System Shock 2, и не зря: половина декораций - пародия как раз на первый System Shock. Вторая половина напоминает недокрашенный King's Quest 8, если бы там было современное число полигонов.

Авторы прекрасно знали свой материал. Даже игровые контракты вида "мы получаем право на ваш образ и съёмку всего, что вы делаете на студии, вдруг мы захотим использовать это в промо" в геймдеве бывали - или во всяком случае коллеги говорили, что видели их. Правда, даже я не работала в настолько разлаженных коллективах, какой показан в игре. Но на том и строится юмор абсурда. И главная мысль верная: лучшее - враг хорошего. В погоне за идеальной игрой можно прошляпить и саму игру, и всё на свете. Это верно как для начинающих разработчиков, так и для суперпроектов (хотя на слуху больше проблема слишком сжатых сроков в ААА-индустрии, из-за которых игры, наоборот, вываливают недоделанными).

Сев в первый раз, я встала из-за игры лишь через два с половиной часа, и то по техническим причинам (не связанным с игрой). Очень рекомендую!

In The Magic Circle you’re a playtester of a game that’s been in development for 20 years, with no end in sight. The project director seems out of touch with the people he works with, as their conversations break down into drama and backstabbing, with no consensus on what the game should be. The project has become the most important thing in his life, but he can’t decide on what it’s supposed to be. Over the long development a part of the game seems to have gained sentience, and wants you the player to take over and finish the game yourself.

You explore an unfinished world, full of half done or abandoned designs, reaching back to the early 90s. The older designs look like System Shock 1, while the new one is a fantasy adventure. You solve puzzles by capturing creatures and objects, and modifying their properties. Even though the game is broken, your method of interacting with it is quite nice! This game was made by Jordan Thomas, best known for making The Cradle in Thief 3, Fort Frolic in Bioshock, and then as Creative Designer on Bioshock 2. By now he knows how to make a game, and The Magic Circle feels like a game made by an expert. There’s no newbie design mistakes, and the game does all it can to make the experience as smooth as possible, without sacrificing complexity. There’s often several solutions to puzzles, so you’re unlikely to get stuck anywhere.

To make a game as meta as this requires the developers be smarty pants. And so they were, invoking authenticity in all the dialog and notes you come across. The references in the game clearly come from Looking Glass, Irrational Games, Ion Storm, and Origin. The closest comparison to this would be The Stanley Parable and Portal 2, but it’s more ambitious than either of them. It only dawned on me after I’d finished it just how much this games does, and how well it succeeds in all it tries to do. If you like to read behind the scenes stuff about game development, The Magic Circle will be a treat.

Have you ever fantasized about clipping through a game's world and finding something fascinating? Like an unfinished quest, maybe, or a hidden prop, or a cut model? I watch cut content videos all the time — there's something very enticing in the idea of content that's sneaked its way into the game against the creators' will. It feels more real somehow. The secret cow level in Diablo 2 was made after an urban legend that originated among the playerbase, and we just know that there's a Mew hidden behind that truck, if you just manage to break the game right.

On its surface — and probably best — layer Magic Circle is game about that.

Through the Cracks
You play as a character in an unfinished game. It hit development hell as the dev team sunk into strife, personal conflict, and bad decisions, told via snippets of audio and in-game messages they left to one another. The final experience isn't good, but it's playable. Mostly, anyway.

You don't really play The Magic Circle though, you rather... toy around with it. It's all about breaking sequences, abusing bad geometry, and finding unintended ways to explore the world you're thrown into. When it works, it does so spectacularly. It makes you feel like you've truly, genuinely broken the game and found something you weren't supposed to. (Unfortunately, it doesn't reward you for this nearly as much as it could have, and it guides you way too much.)

Your main interaction with the game is rewriting the items' and characters' code, which makes it a lovely playground. It's all a big puzzle — and most situations can be solved in a number of ways. Very nice and fun.

I'm emphasizing the "fun" aspect for a reason. Games that offer commentary — especially *on gaming itself* — often forget to be fun in and of their own. The Magic Circle, on the other hand, can be enjoyed as just a gaming-themed puzzle/sandbox, although I would note that it doesn't go as far as some other games offering meta-narratives (like OneShot, released next year, or the more recent Doki Doki Literature Club, both of which expect the player to manipulate game files outside the game).

The Commentary
It's not supposed to just be a gaming-themed puzzle, though. The Magic Circle has several levels of commentary, with the underlying theme being control.

Firstly, it's a story about creative control. The development of the game we're playing is failing due to its maker's personal crisis, and a fan joins the team trying to help — then salvage — then lead. "The fanbase can write you better than you can write yourself!" she exclaims, forcing him to hand the project over.

Secondly, it's about the control over the game world. Who holds the reins? The player expects the story to go their way — but it can only do so within the limits set by the creator. Isn't it why breaking games — the subject I started my review with — is so fun? Because it's how we genuinely escape the developer's control over us?

Entitlement
I think this game offers a very compelling view of the matter of player entitlement. There exists a popular opinion that gamers are, in general, more demanding and harder to please than movie watchers or book readers. Why? The Magic Circle's answer is: because games are designed to hook their consumers on control. Successful games often thrive on giving gamers the illusion of being crucial — the main driver of the story, the only valid judge of how it's supposed to end.

Is it so surprising that gamers often can't shake this sense of righteousness after the credits end?

As gamers inside the story of The Magic Circle demand that fans finish a disappointing work, you, the player, feel that you have more right to decide how the story ends than its creator. This dynamic can't really be fully explored in a shipped, pre-made game (perhaps in the future, in experiences fully run by neural networks, they could genuinely compete with players; for now, we have to be satisfied with illusion). It does its best though.

Importantly, it doesn't feel hostile towards gamer culture. The story presents all points of view as valid and explores the nature of the medium rather than someone's personal downfalls.

The Meh
The director's meltdown did feel on the nose to me, and I think that The Beginner's Guide — released several months later — explores the relationship between the maker and their game, the limits of their personal control and the projection of one's psyche much better.

The ending (that has you make your own game within the game), I think, was supposed to be a meditation on creativity, if not an unfotunate "Yeah? Well, try doing better!" moment. It does actually give some unexpected insight into level design, but the options are way, way too limited to make the player feel like they're actually a gamemaker now. Felt underwhelming.

In general, I think The Magic Circle is an important game and a must-play to anyone interested in the medium's self-reflection. Even if its themes were explored better by other games, it's still perhaps the first installment fully dedicated to exploring them — and it's still genuinely fun to play.

Made a fire-blowing sentient key, a self-loathing dog without legs and a magic mushroom wizard with helicopter propellers.
Good game everyone, good game.

A strong candidte for my favorite game of 2015.
At its core The Magic Circle is a first-person puzzle game with strong comedic elements. The premise is that you are in an unfinished game and have limited abilities to edit the game as you travel through it. The integration between the game mechanics and the story make this exceptionally engaging. There are a bunch of fourth wall jokes and gameplay is fairly non-linear/open-world. You can reach the end of the game fairly quickly (about 5 hours) but there are many side/easter egg things that encourage you to go back and discover afterwards (or before). I highly recommend this to people who enjoyed Portal 2 (not that it's SUPER similar, but the blend of puzzle and comedy is somewhat reminicent).
Your progress in the demo will carry over into the full game. I've done an LP here but encourage you to play the game yourself before watching the end. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLL5JEFvVpx9rBFMQ-7YygNarrBXUBwY1A

This is probably one of the best games I have played in *years*! I want to write a in-depth review, but I simply don't belive I can do that without spoiling it, so I'll just say a bit about the game in general:
------------------------------------------

The Magic Circle is a saterical story-driven explorative game about you (the player) play testing a game being developed by an egotisical game designer who is never happy with his work. You are inseted into his unfionished game, were a mysterious entity wants you to bring it all crashing down on his head. You play through the game rewriting the game from the inside, controlling it to your advantage as you hide your presense from the system.

The story and personal conflicts are derlivered through both hiden collectables and story elements. As you progress, the story gets more and more surreal, as what defines the game you are playing is further called into question.

It's a very open game, with no major hints or "hand holding" - you figure out how to proceed, and there are always multiple ways do so.

------------------------------------------
The game even has a *demo* (haven't seen a demo in YEARS!), so I STROYNGLY recommend this game to anyone, and you can try it for free and decide for yourself.

推荐！

又是一年过去了，一个烂尾十年的游戏，一个江郎才尽的昔日的明星制作人，一个勾心斗角内耗严重的团队，一群忠实，甚至狂热而又天真的粉丝，一群被套牢的投资者，还有被游戏里的囚徒们……为了拯救她们，你站了出来，决定……完成这个游戏！

优点：
幽默感十足的剧情贯穿游戏，了解游戏业的话会感觉格外有趣
复古的游戏视觉体验令人怀念
有挑战的世界探索和解密，收集要素
可以破坏一个E3游戏现场发布会!
游戏最后部分的编辑系统让人眼前一亮！还很简单易懂！

缺点：
流程较短，有些地方还是提示较少
战斗系统比较鸡肋，改动怪物属性最初还蛮有趣，但是特性和组合不多
黑白部分的美术风格个人觉得并不好看，能允许玩家上色就好啦
开放世界部分，特别空间站部分容易让咱晕3D
游戏编辑部分比较单调，而且限制太多，没法制作出比较复杂的地下城

总的来说，这是一款非常值得一试的小游戏，流程通关时间约为2-3小时

最后顺带表扬一下想向咱推荐并且供奉了这款游戏的咩子酱~~

So I bought the game today and played it to completion. I'm really split as to whether I should recommend it or not.

On the one hand, it does have a very nice story and I found it addictive (while it lasted), and reminds of Portal in that regard. The voice acting is brilliant and the different levels of reality it throws at you [\SPOILER ALERT] is refreshing.

However, it lacks puzzles or challenges. It lacks much of a world to explore. I simply don't expect to be able to finish a game in 4 hours, not when it costs £13/$20. There is the option to 'level up' in the game, but its simply unnecessary. You can do everything by just walking without thought and pressing buttons as they come up (I got 90% of the hidden messages this way).

The game has lots of options for creative solutions, but these are not needed as there are basically no problems to be solved. Which I think is the dissapointing thing about this game.

To summarise, the game feels like a short, odd sci-fi/fantasy book. The story keeps you going, and when you finally put it down you feel slightly uneasy about what's just happened. Unfortunately, I don't think that's quite enough for me to recommend it as a game.

Невероятно самобытная игра про... хм, разработку игр. По смыслу это пазл и немножко экшен, но не совсем. После полного прохождения вы точно лучше узнаете, как этот вид искусства работает изнутри и с какими проблемами сталкиваются создатели. Вдаваться в детали тут бессмысленно, так как из этих деталей игра и состоит, так что получится не ревью, а один большой спойлер. Если вам нравятся оригинальные игровые механики и пробивание «четвёртой стены», просто покупайте и проходите, она небольшая, но насыщенная.

Like The Beginner's Guide, The Magic Circle touches on game development and explores the relationships creators can have with their works, but its approach toward and treatment of the subject matter is decidedly different. Instead of a guided tour of a disparate collection of tiny games with little direct interaction, players take on the role of a tester playing The Magic Circle, an in-fiction remake of an acclaimed vintage text adventure that is plagued by scope creep and stuck in development hell as its creators struggle to deal with their personal and interpersonal issues.

A mysterious character within the game guides players towards "hacking" enemies and objects to collect, swap/combine their characteristics and abilities in order to solve puzzles and "finish the game" when its distracted developers could not.

For the most part, players are free to roam and explore The Magic Circle's environments at their own pace and without distraction. The presence of the game's creators doesn't come across as overbearing. They enter, say their pieces, and then leave the player to progress onward, with a lot of context provided through optional in-fiction "commentary nodes" and notes left by the in-fiction lead level designer.

There's a lot within The Magic Circle that's poignant and thoughtful. It feels like it wants to encourage players to understand the demons that creators must wrestle with, and perhaps to consider what it would be like to make a game themselves. The plot has the hallmarks of a tragedy, but at the same time there's something uplifting about it.

The Magic Circle resonated strongly with me, and I'm super glad to have played a small role in helping out with resolving a couple of issues blocking the Linux release.

This was originally written as part of a retrospective[cheesetalks.net] on games I finished in 2015.

メタ系が好きな人にオススメでThe stanley parableの やり取りが好きな人にはたまらない作品です。開発者同士が揉めてる様子を見ることでゲーム制作の苦悩を面白おかしく知ることができるのがとても良かったです。

未完成で欠陥だらけのゲームが舞台。プレイヤーは開発者から奪った開発者ツールを悪用して、オブジェクトのコードを書き換えて敵を倒したり、パズルを解き進めていく部分にも面白さもあります。

They all start with a message. Those games with a deep meaning and a stated purpose, using a virtual world as their canvas. Titles like The Walking Dead or Braid, they want you to feel something first and foremost, at the expense of everything else. The Magic Circle also has a meaning to impart on the player, but I’m not sure if it came first. It’s a game that innovates with both its mechanics and storytelling, bringing the players in and having a nasty conversation with them. It’s a game about the people who play games and the people who design them, which understandably isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Give it a chance though, and its broken world will enchant you in a way that few others will. As meaningful as the message is, the interactivity is placed first and foremost, and that’s why The Magic Circle is a great game and a great experience.

Want to know more? My full review is available over at TechRaptor! http://techraptor.net/content/magic-circle-review-known-shippable

Hey all! I'm glad you made it this far because it means you are curious about The Magic Circle and that is the first step towards having a great experience.

If you enjoyed the witty, narrative driven charm of the Stanley Parable then you should immediately buy The Magic Circle. It oozes cleverness.

Pros:
-Instantly enjoyable
-Funny and witty; everything from the dialogue to the menu screen was made to impress
-Graphic are really fresh and well designed
-Amazing ambient sounds and music
-Interesting characters and themes
-Some seriously exciting and well implemented game mechanics
-Fun, fun, fun

♥♥♥♥:
-Didn't come out earlier so I could play it sooner
-May come off as pretentious to some
-Missed a little dialogue due to hasty key presses

I cannot say enough good stuff about this game. If your curious already that should be enough!

Disclaimer: I wasn't compensated for my review either via a free game key or any other payment. My opinions are my own.

如果不是看到这么高的评分我是绝对不会打开这样一个游戏的，看看她的标签：
冒险\独立\动作\模拟\策略\剧情丰富
看看截图画面，What the hell？完全不是我的菜。
但禁不住高评分诱惑，无聊的我还是打开了这个游戏。

1、菜单上点击开始，步行模拟？画面空旷的我连空旷恐惧症都犯了，然后两个话痨blahblahblah...What the hell？
然后五分钟不到的时间，一周目通关了？What the hell？
然后出来了一个第三者，又开始不停的blahblahblah...What the hell？

2、点击Pro Mode再次开始游戏（二周目？）
这游戏简直有毒，一旦Pro Mode开始就想把他打穿。
我开始逐渐认识到这个游戏的内涵。
又一个打破第四面墙的，让人会心一笑的作品。
长达十年的beta周期，二十年的老粉丝，充满复杂争斗的制作团队，超级话痨的主创，还有卧底，无辜而愤怒的游戏玩家。
神来之笔就是内置的游戏编辑器，通过编辑游戏里面的怪物和物件来过关，通关历程玩家可以自行发挥创意。
最后还通过玩家的努力大闹发布会，成功的将游戏制作权从无能的（？） 开发者夺了过来。惊不惊喜？
现在我们是Open-Source了！然而结局……意不意外？

3、通关以后进入Create Tool（三周目）。
再一次提升游戏的内涵。
我成了制作者，哈哈！！
然而制作的渣一样的游戏惨不忍睹。
嗯，一个游戏的出品真的不容易，珍惜我们玩的每一个游戏吧。

4、Cast上出现了自己的Steam ID，有一瞬间很感动。一个角色扮演游戏，演职表排名第一位的应该是玩家，不是吗？

A short game, that has more to it than you'd think. A very interesting parable, that's actually a game too.

A bit weird - it takes meta to a new level. The gameplay mechanics is fresh and interesting. Was super surprised to find out that this game is seems to be a secret sequel to The Beginner's Guide. If you liked that game definitely play this one.

Le monde de Magic Circle, est géré par les dieux, des entités mono-occulaire qui décident du comportement de toute instance dans ce monde et qui le modèlent selon leurs désirs... La prophétie dit qu'un héros, un jourm viendra renversé l'ordre établie, et combattre les dieux sur leur propre terrain, marquant le début d'une nouvelle ère...

Concrètement, çà se traduit par le fait qu'Ishmael est un créateur réputé dans le milieu, tellement réputé que sa future oeuvre est encore en béta depuis maintenant... 10 ans ! Pas facile de rester stable quand le démon de la création est en vous et quand on est jamais satisfait de son travail et encore moins de ceux de ses collaborateurs...
Vous, beta testeur, serez très rapidement guidé par une entité mystérieuse qui vous appellera "boss" et qui vous donnera quelques outils pour que vous soyez à l'égal des dieux... Mais dans quel but ? mystères...

Les protagonistes sont tous un petit peu désabusés et assez cyniques par moment ; l'humour noir et la bonne dose de second degré du titre rappellent pas mal "Les annales du disque monde" de Pratchet(l'accent british des persos aide bien pour faire la comparaison) et Portal.
Le titre possède des sous-titres en français, mais si vous n'aimez pas lire, entre les vannes très sarcastiques que les persos se lancent et qui demandent de bien saisir leur second degré, et leur style/accent British, je recommanderai pas ce titre pour une personne qui a du mal en Anglais(c'est pas du niveau de GTA avec ♥♥♥**/F***/B**** toutes les minutes...).
-----------------------------
Le gameplay en lui-même est très particulier ; je le considère plus comme un jeu d'aventure à la première personne qu'un First Person Puzzle(type Portal ou Talos). On est plus dans la résolution d'énigmes au sens strict.
Le titre est un petit monde ouvert, mais si vous vous attendez à un Skyrim bis(même lite), vous allez être déçu.

Concrètement, notre héros peut modifier chaque caractéristique des créatures qu'il rencontre, cad:
-comment elle se bat
-comment elle marche
-capacité spéciale
-avec qui elle est alliée
-avec qui elle est ennemie
...Plus quelques autres trucs.

Ce qui fait que tout le jeu va être une sorte d'exploration pour savoir qu'elle créature, en l'état ou modifiée va être utile, pour passer tel ou tel endroit, ou combattre tel ou telle autre créatures...

Sinon, vous avez les traditionnels collectables à ramasser et quelques succès bien fendard... et plein de séquences différentes et un peu psychédéliques, mais vous ne saurez rien de plus!
-----------------------------
Il n'y a pas une grosse durée de vie, ajoutons que le titre n'est pas frustrant pour un sous(y a énormément de checkpoints) et les énigmes dans l'ensemble sont tout à fait faisables même pour ceux qui n'aiment pas les jeux d'aventures ; donc je ne vais pas rentrer dans les détails, se serait vous gâché la surprise(si ce n'est pas déjà fait^^...).

Faut bien voir TMC comme un trip, une expérience narrative qui va au bout de son concept de départ ; çà ne va pas chercher très loin dans ses mécanismes de jeu(la base est surprenante, mais abbats rapidement toutes ses cartes), mais suffisament je trouve pour avoir une histoire et une expérience sans fausse note(à défaut d'être très longue...).

C'est suffisamment original pour mériter votre attention.

+pas vilain, plein de petits délires visuels
+humour et ton employé
+voice acting
+aventure relativement courtes mais bien rythmée et très originale

-on n'aurait pas craché contre plus d'environnements différents

-+ la première fois que je vois un jeu où les bugs apportent vraiment quelque chose au gameplay! :P

i don't even know how to describe what kind of game this is because i've never seen or played anything else like it..its like..portal..without portals..combined with the unfinished swan on drugs..?
basically the story starts with you in a broken prototype version of a fantasy adventure game which you're meant to think is the actual game, but as the glitches go on, you hear developers commenting on what's happening in the background and changing the world around you as you play, and it gets really weird and cool and i don't want to spoil too much even though i haven't beaten it myself yet but basically it's a game inside a game about a game that's all a commentary on making games. It's weird and cool and hard and fun and JUST BUY IT OK. Also the music is really good.

FEATURES:
-Explore a stylized storyboard world (and some other stuff that's semi spoilers so shhh)
-Capture and edit entities in the game (there's not combat, make the enemies work for you or just take their abilites)
-Great story (so far)
-Amazing soundtrack (The deluxe edition comes with it free, put it in your itunes or whatever)
-One of the only early access games to run perfectly on day 1

Overall i havent finished the game yet so i can't give an exact score or anything but i'd say it's worth the price for sure

Abordée avec humour, l'histoire reste quand même assez floue de mon point de vue, à vous de chercher les différents ChangeLog et enregistrements audio pour retracer le cours des événements.

Vous incarnez en effet un "testeur" dans un jeu non terminé. Guidé par le “Vieu Pro”, un personnage oublié d'un jeu abandonné par ses créateurs, parcourez un monde non terminé et assistez aux débats des concepteurs qui discutent de l'avenir du jeu.

Pourtant, c'est à vous de décider de cet avenir, allez vous laisser faire la stagiaire fan(atique) faire ce qu’elle veut ? Ou vous rebeller contre les concepteurs, considérés comme des Dieux, présents sous la forme d'yeux géants qui volent, et qui n'hésitent pas à briser le 4e mur ? (
Lien Wikipédia pour plus d'infos[fr.wikipedia.org])

Aller Bim ! Dans ta tronche le 4e mur ! 

Une capture d'écran de The Magic Circle

Par : Clovinoux 💩💩💩

Rechargez-vous en “vie”, une énergie présente dans les fissures qui parsèment le monde afin de piéger et personnaliser les différentes créatures et éléments. Avoir une pierre volante qui lance des rayons électriques (d’où le titre, vous l’aurez compris) ou crache du feu, c’est possible ! Aidez-vous de vos différents compagnons pour résoudre les puzzles afin de progresser dans cet univers.

Univers qui reste élégant, aux graphismes simples, alternez entre des parties du jeu en noir et blanc, et des parties en pixel dans le style des jeux des années 90 (qui représentent le jeu abandonné abordé ci-dessus).

Plutôt classe .... 

Une capture d'écran de The Magic Circle

Par : Clovinoux 💩💩💩

Seule ombre au tableau : ce côté simulateur de marche qui rend le jeu parfois un peu lent, une touche de sprint aurait été la bienvenue. Un système de voyage rapide vient cependant combler en partie ce petit souci.

En conclusion : partez à l’aventure dans le monde de The Magic Circle et découvrez une histoire sympathique et un concept novateur. Cependant, d’une durée de vie assez courte, il ne vaut clairement pas son prix de base, préférez attendre des soldes (assez courantes) qui baissent son prix de manière significative.

The Magic Circle... what do I say. It's clear the developers are trying to say something with it, but I'm not sure they themselves know what it's supposed to be saying.

I'm quite sure I was supposed to have some revelation about video games like Spec Ops or The Stanley Parable. But while those games played all up and down the scales of meta, questioning and prodding the relationship between the player and the game, as soon as The Magic Circle grasped onto a point about anything, it slipped and fell off, eventually ending so far down the "CAN YOU TELL THIS IS SATIRE YET?" hole: in the second half of the game, you are required sabotage an entirely ♥♥♥♥♥ demo for "E4", the massive gaming convention (yes). It feels less like a story about video game development and more like pent-up retribution the team was directing at their former employers. It struck me as immature.

The characters are all just awful people. Its few attempts at trying to cause sympathy are, well, I'm just going to say it, creepy. One of the characters announces that they're sterile. There's mentions of orgies in the woods at sex castle dungeons. It is extremely creepy and forced and trying way too hard for the Video Games Are Art award. Everybody is bitter and angry and hostile and sarcastic. There was no part where anybody smiled, or laughed, or seemed in any way pleased about anything.

But I'm giving the game a thumbs up. Why? The parts and the narrative about the struggles about video game development rung true. The mechanics of undeleting and editing characters, to having lordes of pets, to the puzzle solving, were ultimately fun. Climbing to places I'm not "supposed" to go to find easter eggs feels rewarding. The game developers know that I'm going to explore every nook and cranny, and they make it worthwhile. There are stories and lore littered around which perhaps give a glimmer of insight, however surface, into the choices and problems that face video games.

The game was at its best when it showed people genuinely trying to make a *good* video game, rather than simply get paid, or get out of a wretched contract, or get revenge on the designer (which, spoilers, are the three goals of the main characters at the end).

The developers also knew that making a game about an unfinished prototype is a slippery slope -- it requires a certain kind of "not polish" that needs to seem intentional, rather than lazy. They pulled this off super well. The art style is "placeholder textures", but when you get near objects, they spring into color and life, showing that yes, they can draw things for real. Some feel like they're out of a freeware game -- unaligned pieces of Arial text and boring controls, but when you go "behind the scenes" and rewrite the game's mechanics, it feels like a really well-done hacker movie, with snippets of code zooming past you. This is a trick that's hard to pull off, and these guys did it.

It's also worth mentioning that although first-person, you never hold any gun. It's about puzzles, interaction, and exploration, which is always refreshing to see.

So yes, is it a good game? No. Not by a long-shot. Is it worth your time, and do I recommend you play it? Yes. At least up until you kill the Sky Bastard.

A creative 1st person puzzle games (sort of?) that comes with story about two things : Existentialism Philosphy and Game Industry. Somehow reminds me of jostein gaarder novel Sophie Verden / Sophie's World (atau versi Indonesia nya : Dunia Sophie). Really clever.

i really recommend this game to people who love weird and unusual great games (like me!).

One of those games you might already own but completely forgotten about, yet is well worth your time.

The Magic Circle is a rather trippy road down memory lane for those who've been playing games from the early days up to this day, where you're part of a team working on a game stuck in development hell. Spoiling more would be a disservice to you, as this is a very story driven game. Not quite a walking sim, and all the more enjoyable for it.

Highly recommended for the slightly older gamer.

A very unique game with incredible voice-acting about itself(the game) coming alive and taking control from it's developers. Its both funny and very accurate in representing common issues in the gaming industry as well as working on large projects in general. I found the dialogue (of which there was a lot) to be very relatable.

Gameplay is most reminicient of puzzles. The player character itself is unable to fight, but can "reprogram" creatures by taking attributes off exisitng ones and mixing and matching them onto others. For example you can take off a fire immunity from a rock, attach it to a turtle, then step on the turtle and tell it to swim over the lava river, riding on it's back to cross it.

There are more advanced mechanis too, like making a creature "broadcast" it's attributes over a range to all similar creatures. So if you have a friendly flying dog, attach the hivemind ability to it, and every dog will become friendly and gain ability to fly. It's a really cool mechanic.

Also the game has 2 distinct gameplay modes, which, to avoid spoilers, I would just say, are completely different. The second gameplay mode you unlock further in the story.

Special bonus the game gets for it's voice acting. I don't know where they got the money to pay the (very famous and good) actors in this game, but it bloody well shows - every single sentence is an absolute masterpiece, which of course does credit to writers too - even the most excellent actor can't make a crappy line sound good. The music is also very good.

The game looks bad, and is short, which I guess is to be expected. I did not see any unintended bugs in the game and it overall has a very professionally-outlined scope and a lazer focus on it. Everything that matters exists and is done well, everything that doen't - doesn't exist. Similar to Distance in that regard and always a pleasure to see a product like that.

So, to summarize:

+ Great voice acting and story
+ Unique and clever gameplay
+ Accurate social commentary
+ Good soundtrack

- Short length
- No replay value

An excellent one-time experience that is well worth it's price, especially on sale. Highly recommend.

This is an Early Access review of The Magic Circle! Be warned that I do not like Early Access because of how many projects that never get finished!

Welcome, one and all, the The Magic Circle. Welcome to a land where gametesters are gods and the designers are lazy.

The Magic Circle is a very innovative and creative first person adventure game. You begin by starting the game with nothing in hand and the creators of the virtual world talking in the background. The game is a strange one. Imagine The Stanley Parable mixed with Portal; even though it's not like either of those games in the slightest. For some strange reason, the game reminded me of those two games in many ways.

Your character has no name and you don't have any weapons, even though this is an RPG... an unfinished one (on purpose, it's part of the game's charm). The game has beautiful graphics from every era along with colorful characters and gameplay!

Pros:
+Beautiful graphics style
+Original gameplay and story
+Unique artstyle
+Lots of 4th wall breaks
+Original UI for upgrades and inventory
+Amazing voice acting

♥♥♥♥:
+Graphical errors (such as me being able to look through walls/ floors in certain places)

The game isn't a short one. If you're expecting a short and sweet Early Access indie, then you are mistaken. The game is very polished and has amazing voice acting. This hidden Steam gem should be known by everyone. I can't wait to see what the developers have in store for the full release!

I'd give this game a 9/10. I will gladly add the single point back when the graphical mishaps are corrected.

Amazing job guys, I'm impressed!

A clever concept that fell short of its potential. You play as a play tester for an unfinished game. Throughout your gameplay you meet characters that personify the philosophies and constituencies of game culture.

PROS:
* Interesting concept
* Quirky characters and story
* Puzzles could be solved in multiple ways

♥♥♥♥:
* Gameplay was dull. Although puzzles could be solved in multiple ways, many could be solved using the same strategy. It never really felt challenging or exciting.
* Snarky character dialogue was funny at first, but by the end it was just tiring. Everyone felt wronged and was constantly finger-pointing at the other characters. In the end, I didn't really care what happened to any of them, which was just as well because
* The narrative was very linear. The story seemed at all times to expect the player to pick a side, but in the end it didn't matter because all you could do was side with the characters in the way that was predetermined.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS:
* Short with no replayability

Великолепно! Совершенно потрясающая игра, как в геймплейном, как в сюжетном, как в визуальном, как в музыкальном, так и, черт подери, в плане секретиков!! Я играла в нее почти не отрываясь, рискуя придти утром на работу и уснуть за компьютером! Меня захватил сюжет, я излазила кучу дыр, залезала на нереальную высоту, получила уйму удовольствия и не могла оторваться от сюжета!! И тот восторг, когда я наконец догадалась, как решить головоломку, как сделать все это! Превосходно!! И, япона мать, любая попытка рассказать об игре более четкими фразами приведет к неизбежным спойлерам!! И это прекрасно, я считаю!
Огромное спасибо разработчикам за этот непередаваемый опыт! За всю ту гамму чувств, которые я испытала, за всю ту уйму вопросов, которыми я задалась!

This game surprised me with how unique it is. At first I was skeptical of the premise, and put off playing it for quite a while, and though it started slow, I quickly got into the flow of the game. Modifying monsters to my delight. Having a Spider problem? Send it hordes of flaming rocks. Can't reach a certain area? Ride on one of your newly flying rocks. Something got you down? Nothing cuter than a flying muchroom.

Puzzles and solutions, along with this unique gameply makes me highly recoomend it to anyone looking for a unique (abeit a little short) experience.

And the end game is the icing on the cake.

《The Magic Circle》是一个剧情和玩法双全的优秀Meta游戏。

我记得几年前，看过这款游戏的视频，到了现在，模模糊糊只记得这是一款Meta游戏，也就是打破第四面墙，讨论游戏这个载体本身的游戏。亲自体验之后我可以说，这个游戏，虽然看上去有点“其貌不扬”，Steam上的好评率也没有达到“好评如潮”，但却是一款具有鲜明特色的游戏。

游戏的商店简介直接写出，“你是一个未完成的奇幻游戏的主角，而这款游戏的设计师们辜负了你”。进入游戏，看到的就是仅仅只是在白板上画好了几幅“分镜”的“开场动画”，而播放的录音则属于在录音时还在吵架的两名开发者Ish和Maze。在我们控制主角（第一人称视角）通过一个完成度极低的“Demo”，并且目睹Ish和Maze继续在各种问题上争吵之后，因为Ish担心玩家会杀NPC，所以被除掉武器的主角，被原先设计好的“地狱犬”战斗给杀死了。

但是主角并没有被删除，而是进入了某种“鬼魂”状态。在这种状态下，主角可以和其它开发者们暂时删除，但并没有完全删除，以防未来还要用到的同样处于“鬼魂”状态的事物。所以说是“鬼魂”状态，其实也就是某种为了“撤销”操作而存在的“临时缓存”吧。在这种状态下，一个神秘的声音“Old Pro”出现，声称他可以帮助主角，摆脱这群因为各种各样的问题和争吵，以至于永远都不可能真的把游戏开发出来的开发者们的“设计”，从而真正把这个游戏做出来。

这就是本作剧情的开头。看完这一系列展开，喜欢Meta的我反正是已经完全被hook住了。

接下来，游戏就进入了真正有玩法的阶段——“Overworld”。

主角本身没有攻击的能力，所以“Old Pro”给了主角两个能力：一是可以将被“删除”的东西恢复的能力；二是可以将游戏中生物的移动方式、特殊能力等“组件”像积木一样拆装、拼接的能力。这两个能力说白了就是一定程度的“编辑”权限。

于是，在玩法上，主角需要在开发者们目前为止建立出来的“世界”中探索，用“恢复”能力探索游戏中被“删除”的事物，以及用“组装”能力收集各种各样的“组件”，并用这些“组件”解决问题，因此本作的核心玩法是“探索”和“解谜”。在剧情上，主角可以在“世界”中的各个角落找到开发者们留下的“更改日志”（Changelog）和音频日志等文件，通过这种方式了解开发者们的故事。最终，整个故事会走向什么样的结局，开发者们和这个游戏的命运又将何去何从，这个就留给你自己去探索吧，我能说的是，配音是很优秀的，情节也值得思考。当然，如果想看我对剧情的理解和评价（很显然有剧透），可以翻到本文最后。

本作的玩法是很有特点的，尤其是“组装”，感觉会产生很多的可能性，但比较遗憾的是，本作的谜题深度可能并没有那么深，许多谜题都只有一个关键步骤——找到并使用某种特殊能力。但即使是这样，我觉得本作的谜题质量还是很不错的，虽然不多，但创意上很好。而且本作的许多谜题都有开放的解法（就是有多种解法），这应该也算是优点吧。

本作最大的“缺点”可能就是它的价格了。虽然我承认这个游戏很有它的特点，我也很喜欢这种特点，但是68元的全价和5、6个小时的内容可能还是有点匹配不上。我个人是在打折时买的，差不多10多元的价格，在这个价位下我觉得就是很值的了。

但总的来说，本作如我之前所说，是一个剧情和玩法都很有特点的游戏，我个人认为绝对值得开开眼界。

结论：强烈推荐，不过还是推荐在打折时喜加一。

以下是我对本作剧情的一点理解：

本作将几名开发者表现得非常生动，他们都远远说不上是完美的人，也不是完美的开发者，他们的性格和对游戏开发的态度都有各种各样的问题，致使他们的游戏“难产”长达二十年。而本作的优秀之处就在于，把这些问题以一种既带有幽默，但又发人深省的方式表达了出来。

先理一理本作的几位主要人物吧。

Ish以某款文本冒险游戏（Text Adventure Game，那种只有文字描述，并通过输入命令一样进行操作的游戏）的创作者“Starfather”的名号广为人知，并正在领导TMC（The Magic Circle的缩写）工作室，制作这款文字冒险游戏的续作，《The Magic Circle》。他在这款续作的某次多人测试中看到了Maze，一名职业玩家的表现，于是雇佣了她。多年后，他又遇到了应聘实习的狂热粉丝Coda，并被她的热情打动，雇佣了她。

Maze出于对游戏的热爱，签署了终身合同，但TMC工作室的工作环境并不像她想象的这么好，在游戏“难产”的多年中，她的热情渐渐消退，但终身合同要求，除非她被工作室解雇，否则如果她离职，就需要给TMC工作室留下她的品牌形象等等权利。这让她对这个游戏企划不仅变得冷漠、不再关心，更是产生了对Ish这个将她“困”在此处的人的仇恨。Coda进入工作室后，Maze本想利用她来让Ish解雇自己，但结果是反被Coda利用、控制。

Coda是Ish之前作品的狂热粉丝，在进入TMC工作室之前基本把Ish，也就是“Starfather”，当作神来看待。她对这款游戏有超乎寻常的热情，在网上也有游戏主播、游戏论坛管理者之类的身份，总之都和《The Magic Circle》有关，可以说是粉丝当中举足轻重的人物。为了这份热情，她想要进入TMC工作室完成这款她理想中的游戏，但现实迅速让她对Ish和Maze的爱转变为了恨。为了“拯救这款游戏”，她开始执行她的计划。

接下来总结一下本作剧情。

Coda在Demo的开发过程中，发现了其中隐藏的“太空”版本（主角恢复的），这直接促使了Coda向Ish“抢夺”控制权的计划。Coda的计划是，通过Demo，向玩家们展示被Ish隐藏的“太空”版本，同时让Ish在E4展会上出丑。为了这个目的，她首先接近Ish，让Ish把Maze的那些权利转让给了她，从而直接控制Maze。她还招揽了许多粉丝，意图在现场威胁Ish放弃控制权。不过在她准备这个计划时，Old Pro和玩家操纵的主角设法黑进了她的“摄像头”，掌握了她的工作室账号，获得了权限。在主角的探索期间，Maze发现了主角的行动，但她并没有阻止。Coda的计划受阻，但她并没有放弃，她决定在E4展会前的数小时，联合几名粉丝直接建立一个新的，只是看上去漂亮的Demo。

在E4现场，Old Pro和主角利用先前获得的权限，也获得了这个新Demo的编辑权限，通过修改Demo，没有完全让Coda的计划成立，不过还是成功让Ish出丑了。在威胁之下，Ish宣布放弃自己的控制权，将《The Magic Circle》开放给大众。看上去是件好事，Coda也是这么认为，她名正言顺地成为了这项企划的领导者，打算让粉丝们一同使用开发工具完成这个游戏，至少先完成一部分，以交付开发用服务器的费用。但是粉丝们说是粉丝，事实上也只是一群网上的陌生人，联合他们不如看上去那么容易，很快他们就迅速分裂，陷入了无止尽的争吵和冲突。

Old Pro将主角带到了一个不受干扰的地方，用之前收集到的“组件”来设计自己的关卡，并由Old Pro来试玩，给出评价。最终，主角就是那个做出了能交付费用的一部分游戏的人，成为了TMC工作室的新领导者。然而这只是第一步，很快，随着一个又一个开发者要求主角决策，主角也淹没在了众多的声音之中。

剧情总结结束。

可以看出，《The Magic Circle》的开发过程非常混乱，即使到最后，整个游戏有没有真的被“拯救”都是未知数，算是开放性结局。然而，到底是什么让这款游戏的开发落到这样的境地的呢？

开发组所遇到的种种客观问题（金钱、硬件限制）自然是原因之一，而开发人员的能力有限，“眼高手低”，也是重要的原因。

Ish沉溺在他的“故事”之中，在婚姻失败，自己还被诊断患有不育症之后，他将这款游戏，甚至玩这款游戏的玩家都当作了他的“孩子”。但在他完美的愿景和现实碰撞的时刻，他没有决断的能力，从而一直逃避做出决策，或者不断推翻之前的决策。甚至，在“太空”版本的游戏完成度很高的情况下，Ish仍然决定推倒重来，在其之上建立了“剑与魔法”版本的世界。

Maze想要开发独特的玩法，但由于开发者们的能力有限，加上Ish的决策混乱，不能实现。Coda也是一个十足的理想主义者，自以为能凭借自己和粉丝们狂热的热情，就能够替代开发者们的努力，但事实是，仅仅是将人们组织起来，就是她难以做到的。主角虽然最终“开发”出了一个简单的Demo，看起来像是走上了“正轨”，但游戏的开发才刚刚开始，巨量的工作和决策还在前方。

Old Pro的一句话让我感受很深：“People don't arc. They loop.”。现实不是故事，故事可以用“英雄之旅”之类的框架写出来一条完整的“剧情线”（arc），有始有终，角色最终都会得到“角色发展”（character development），但现实中，很多人都像“循环”（loop）一样，不断重复自己的错误。可以说，本作中的开发者们就是如此。这可以是在说开发者个人不断重复自己的错误，也可以是在说这种看上去的“更新换代”实际上也是一种“循环”，也可以是在说这个游戏的开发陷入了一种停滞状态的“循环”。这可以是“The Magic Circle”的一种解释（不同于作为游戏设计术语时的“The Magic Circle”），这个词本身在本作中也有很多种解释和暗喻，比如Ish对自己失败婚姻（戒指）的“执念”，比如指代开发者们创造的世界，等等。

我们似乎已经习惯于看到游戏的成功，但很少注意那背后成千上万的失败。纵使“好事多磨”，但“磨”出来的东西也并不一定是成功。本作通过游戏中的叙事谈论游戏外的论题，用别开生面的方式描述了游戏开发的可怕现实，一方面，我们会某种程度上理解失败，另一方面，正因为这样的现实的存在，我们才对那些脚踏实地，最终取得的成功更加敬佩。

说了这么多，我就再提一点吧，关于“Old Pro”和主角的身份。主角应该就是玩家，可能是以某种黑客的方式进入这个游戏的。而根据游戏中隐藏的主游戏测试Lief Troper的日志，TMC工作室的一名程序员Sera试图开发一个协助游戏测试的AI（怎么又是AI），而之后，Sera被开除，但某天，游戏中的所有bug在一夜之间都消失了，Ish的一个音频日志中也提到了这件事。之后，Maze也看到了莫名出现的“测试者”，但认为只是某个黑客所为。而Lief则认为做这件事的人，就是AI，也就是游戏本身。为了证实这件事，他在游戏中留下了这些写给AI的日志，然后通过看读过这些日志的账号来判断，事实证明，阅读这些日志的账号就是一堆乱码。

这就特别有意思了。结合游戏中的各种信息，Old Pro就是那个AI，而它用它的权限引导了主角（玩家），试图让游戏走上正轨。最明显的证据就是在某段剧情中，Old Pro亲口提过它修复了“太空”版本游戏的事情。这么一看，Old Pro的很多行为和话语就都能解释了，尤其是最后发售游戏后他的对话，作为一个用来测试的AI，它可能最想要看到的就是有更多的关卡可以“测试”，它引导玩家走到这一步，就是为了这个目标。甚至在游戏最后的一个阶段，Old Pro所做的确实就是测试你做出来的关卡，就是它原本的目的。我个人是这么理解的，但不管怎么解释，我觉得都很有意思。如果有其他剧情细节我没有注意到，欢迎在评论区留言。

这个游戏还是很有深意的，还有很多东西可以说，可以探讨，我就写这么多。

那么，就说到这里吧。我们下次有缘再见。

A short, bizarre, meta-as-hell game about games. The Magic Circle is an RPG. It's an adventure. It's a puzzle game. It's a sim. It's not any of these things because you're stuck in an unfinished game while developers backbite and undermine each other in the name of creative vision, economic necessity, and personal ambition. Great voice work from James Urbaniak and Ashly Burch and lots veiled shots at Richard Garriott, Peter Molyneux, and others.

Got attacked by a Howler. Reprogrammed the Howler to hate Howlers and be a pickable item. Threw the Howler at another Howler which he instantly attacked and killed. I am still laughing.

This might be the best "game" ever made.

This game felt so promising. As I was just getting the hang of the gameplay, and starting to enjoy what I could do with it, it was all over. The end sequence of the game is an abrupt finish that felt very anti climactic.

I loved the concept of the game and I honsestly suggest only buying this game in a sale or if it gets some new content. I is not worth 20$ for the 4~ hours of gameplay it offers. If they lengthened the story into another "episode" I would think it was worth the money as long as it isn't offered as paid DLC.

In short, this game had so much potential but didn't allow me to explore what I could do with what it offered.

This here is a wild animal, friends. Reminds me of what happens when you take apart several musical instruments and reassemble them in various ways. You get beautiful crazy sounds. This is out of hand in an awesome way.

This is the stuff that makes video games great. Makes you use your brain.

Plus the music is awesome.

Not sure how long it is - as far as if it is worth twenty bones - but it certainly thinks outside of the box. The voice acting is great too.

Get the demo, at least.

I can't recommend this game strongly enough.

I hadn't heard of it, but it showed up in a Humble Monthly Bundle and gave it a shot. I'm feeling so, so indebted to the HB project for getting this onto the radar of more people.

This is a real creative gem. The story and gameplay are very clever and original; the voice acting is superb (aside from a bit of clunkiness from the main narrator here and there), along with the writing; the ways in which you can and must play and think are varied and interesting - breaking the fourth wall and jostling your point of view in unexpected ways; and the weirdness of clashing art styles is pure joy.

It's pretty short, even for someone who is as thorough and ♥♥♥♥-around-y of a gamer as I am, which is my only complaint. It could probably be finished in only a few hours. However, at least the developers didn't do anything to artificially pad the game to stretch it out. It's concise. Also, there's a lot of little stuff to go back and hunt for, and there's something pretty fun that gets unlocked after finishing, so you can still tack on a few hours of play after completing.

I give this one a 9.5. Buy this damn game.

I feel bad about not recommending this game as it is so unique. This is more of an experience than a game, you are inside an unfinished game and are able to exploit the unfinished state to edit parts of the game. You have been edited to not be able to attack or do much of anything so you meet creatures, edit them to be friendly and use and edit them to help you progress through the game. You get to read developer logs, get advice from the "Pro gamer" and can also see and hear the live developer avatars at times. Those mechanisms are how the story is told. It ended up not being a story I was interested in though.

It is very interesting but the mechanics are pretty minimal. There are only a handful of creature types, attack types and movement types. It is quite easy to defeat anything you meet once you have the right components and so the game is more about exploration. After you defeat the boss of the "game", there are other things that happen that are completely different (go to an E4 event and create a small game. Again not much to them though.

So great concepts but not enough game. Maybe get it on a deep sale but it can just as easily be skipped or watched online to see what it is all about.

I wish I could tell you what makes this game so incredible, but I'd be spoiling all the good bits. The gameplay is fresh and the story reflects the state of game development industry today.

The major plot point is that you're inside an unfinished game. You get to piece up what went wrong during development - while completing puzzles which require you to edit creatures to your advantage. It's fun, and the creatures are cute. Well, creepy cute. The game then gets so much deeper the further in you get...

I can't recommend this enough, I feel like I'm literally stuffing it down someone's throat already. If you like a good story and interesting gameplay like you've never encountered before - please, try out the Magic Circle.

(I bought the game through the Humble Monthly Bundle, totally worth it this time!)

Making games isn't easy. There are so many things that need to be considered from cost of development to marketing. Throw in some ego and human error and things can get really messy. So messy in fact that in The Magic Circle, the game decides to turn against its creators, with your help of course. With the ability to hack into the games code and other useful tools given to you from an old pro, you will start a twisted journey to take the power from the powers that be. Perhaps more importantly find out who they are. The Magic Circle is a somewhat of a linear story, it isn't super difficult and the puzzles are rather light. What the game does boast is quite the atmosphere, everything can change in the blink of an eye and usually does. The entire game is also somewhat satirical and humorous, poking fun at game design and developers. Hacking into objects and bending the rules is entertaining but nothing that is seriously complicated or strategic. It's just fun. I would've loved to see this expanded on more but the story is front and center here. I would say that The Magic Circle falls under the walking simulator genre, not that I feel that is a bad thing and mean this in no harmful or derisive way. The voice work is amazing and visuals match. You will sometimes hear the composer deciding what music is appropriate for the scene and this made me chuckle. In all, while it is a linear story, it is a fun story, that allows you to screw around a bit with the behaviors of things, It has style, it has charm, and is worth your time.

I made a video review to show off some of the features and gameplay of this game!

I hope you enjoy!
Martyr

If you enjoy games such as Antichamber, Stanley Parable, and/or Bioshock I think you’ll like this. It emphasizes exploration more than puzzles or combat, but I think it’s somewhere in that range. Very refreshing and very worth your time.

I’d been excited to play this because of Jordan Thomas’s involvement (Shalebridge Cradle, Fort Frolic), but otherwise didn’t know what to expect.

The first surprise is that it’s the funniest game he’s worked on. The narrative is mostly delivered by overhearing conversations, sort of a comedy radio play. The characters are exaggerated blends of some well-known developers (Richard “Lord British” Garriott, John Romero, Warren Spector, Stevie Case, etc.). Some characters talk directly to you, but since you are involved in the fiction as a ‘player’ it frequently makes jokes as it breaks the 4th wall. The world contains a huge number visual gags about unfinished/buggy/cliché games and these are funny as long as you’ve looked at a level editor or bad game even once. There’s also text logs that poke fun at the petty disagreements that happen when developing a game.

The second surprise (though more in tune with Jordan’s other work) is that it’s really creepy. Everything in the game’s presentation is trying to unsettle you. The world looks like it’s barely held together and every action you take looks breaks the world just a little more, almost to the point of snapping in two. There’s layers of subtext anywhere you look and it’s like snooping in someone’s trash. The motivations and origins of characters are mysterious enough to draw you in and push your comfort level as you voyeuristically hear their interactions.

The third surprise is the actual gameplay. It’s hard to tell if this is a FPS, RPG, or what from the trailer (or even the first hour of play). It finally hit me that the easiest description is that it’s a necromancer game with some light puzzle elements. It’s presented as an open world, but some directions are blocked off until you find a decent combination of ‘spells’ to open up a new path. The necromancy also plays into the creepiness since your army of the undead is kind of a loud menace that won’t give you personal space.

The final section of the game goes in some crazy directions with story and gameplay. It’s a little too much to take in as one big chunk, but it’s also a great climax that makes the game feel complete. It’s a nice self-contained story and I can’t fault for being a bit meta or navel gazing when it’s so unlike anything else I’ve played before.

I thought this was gonna be another cheap walking sim with meta commentary. What I got was a great open-ended puzzle game with a great story and FANTASTIC voice acting.

The whole theme of the game is unfinished videogames and how much work and heart goes into making games. All the puzzles are solved by reprogramming the NPCs and coming up with your own solutions. The writing and voice acting were really good, the ending scene speech by the director gave me goosebumps. The VO was just incredible.

I can't wait to see what these guys put out next!

Не очень длинный пазл, в котором мы попадаем в незавершенную игру. Сюжет погружает нас в хорроры жизни разработчиков игр, глазами инди-разработчиков. Вообще, сюжет в этой игре мне понравился меньше всего остального, уж очень он депрессивный, полный самоненависти и отрицательных персонажей, хотя примерно так я себе и представляю жизнь геймдевов в наши дни.
С другой стороны, сюжет здесь служит отличным обоснованием того, как игра выглядит и что нам приходится в ней делать. Я ожидал просидеть пару часов, зажав W, вместо этого игра удивила меня оригинальным геймплеем, который сильно меняется на протяжении игры, предоставляя все больше и больше свободы действий, и интересными нелинейными уровнями через которые игра не водит нас за руку. Ничего конкретного упоминать не буду, так как эту игру лучше всего проходить, не зная, чего ожидать.
В общем, если вы ищете чего-то нового и необычного, стоит сыграть в The Magic Circle.

I played barely any of the demo and I quit to buy it. This game is great. The level design reminds me a lot of Dark Souls. The concept is amazing though. You bring the dying game to life. You can reprogram anything. You want that rock to follow you and be your pet, do it. Just steal the abilities off another creature. There is some good light platforming, back tracking Metroidvania style, and a lot of side things to discover. Just finished it up in about 6 hours. I was shocked when I reached the second part of the game. Like an added bonus to an already good game. Well worth $2.80 per hour. You'd spend at least twice that at the theater. Plus the voice acting and writing is great too. I give it 10 Rusty Ventures out of 10.

This is an experince. a darned good one at that.

The graphics are pretty, the enemies (soon to be allies) varied and interesting, the puzzles clever,
and the story is a brillant satire of the game industry and fandom.

这游戏说实话蛮不错的，主要情节是你进入了一个游戏的测试版，然后么这个游戏因为各种原因制作了n年，目前还在烂尾中，然后你在里面用魔法（数据修改工具）进入各种未完工场景探索。画面就不说了，截图你们也看到了。游戏的方式蛮新颖的，就是全程e文实在是太不友好了

Made a rock that had teeth and was able to fly.

The game is like the Stanley Parable but with an army of deadly pets.

Exploration-satire with excellent voice acting, a silly plot, and a lot of creative art decisions. It's a tight, focused game that keeps shifting your goals to keep you from ever having to repeat yourself until it ends, and now that it's out of Early Access, I can safely say the finished product is a wonderful experience. Buy this if you want to see the industry as a whole mocked lovingly.

Un jeu plein de surprises et d'humour !

Core gameplay :
- Prendre les capacités de la faune et flore en présence et les mixer dans d'autres créatures
- Changer les affinités des dites créatures pour motiver des affrontements ou gagner des animaux de compagnie
- Mixer les points décrits plus haut avec une bonne dose de navigation (marche tranquille, saut) pour explorer l'environnement proposé... Et trouver encore plus de créatures à hacker !

The Magic Circle est simple dans sa manière de mettre en avant des objectifs sur le long-terme, mais laisse ensuite le joueur libre de la manière avec laquelle remplir ces objectifs. Les combinaisons possibles entre créatures et capacités sont nombreuses et je me suis rapidement attaché à ma petite équipe, faite sur mesure pour répondre aux défis face à moi.
Le lore basé sur une équipe de production déchirée, finissant son projet dans la douleur, est très rattaché au réel mais le traite avec humour. Au fur et à mesure que le jeu évolue, l'intrigue se mêle davantage au gameplay et crée un tout intéressant à suivre et jouer.

Définitivement à essayer si vous aimer :
- Vous exprimer à travers le gameplay qu'un jeu vous propose
- Explorer un environnement par vous-mêmes et résoudre ses mystères
- Vous laisser surprendre par un grand n'importe quoi ponctuellement

Attention :
- Quelques longueurs par moment, si vous n'êtes pas dans le mood de suivre des dialogues et selon l'optimisation de vos voyages dans le monde semi-ouvert proposé par le jeu

Fini en environ 4h30.

到下一个板块之前，以下内容没有超出游戏介绍视频的任何剧透，读者可以放心观看。

一部集讽刺艺术于大成的游戏，与其说这是一部献给玩家的游戏，不如说它是献给独立游戏开发者的游戏。有趣的是，本游戏自身就是一款独立游戏。稍微有熟悉独立游戏的玩家都知道，独立游戏一向以良莠不齐著称，其中固然有灵光一现的极佳作品，但更多的是半途而废的企划、空口无凭的许诺、以及粗制滥造的成果。本作或许不够全面、或许只是展现了一种有限的视角，但它探讨了一部独立游戏失败的缘由、制作人与开发团队的关系、制作人与游戏内容的关系、以及制作人与玩家之间的关系。与此同时、也从反面展现了一部好的独立游戏，应当有怎样的生态。当然，仅仅从本作本身的素质出发，它也完全值得一玩。这些优点包括但不限于

• 独树一帜的玩法：本游戏打造了一个高度自由的开放世界、并开放给玩家自由编辑其中生物的权限，从而隐性设计出了一种非线性探索路线。从这一方面来讲，说它有点《恶魔城·晓月圆舞曲》的味道也未尝不可，甚至可以说，它做得更好。玩家需要获取其中一些生物的能力，才能够进一步地探索某些地图。
  
• 以探索为中心的优秀设计：所有的小地图（或者说、副本）之间都是平滑连接、没有转场。当玩家打通某个小地图之后，发现自己来到一个似曾相识的地方，颇有一种柳暗花明的感觉。游戏也给玩家提供了各种方便探索的机制，例如检查点、传送、召唤，这些因素都大大降低了玩家探索地图的过程中，所需要做的重复工作。即使进入了原先探索过的地方，也仍然不会让人产生厌倦感。
  
• 非线性的剧情推动方式：随着游戏进程的不断推进，玩家获取的能力也愈来愈多，也通过收集各种信息，慢慢拼凑出了这部游戏背后剧情的全貌。进而，游戏进入了一个全新的阶段，届时玩家所收集到的能力，也有了一种新的玩法。
  
• 富有挑战性的隐藏谜题：作为一款以探索为卖点的游戏，游戏提供了不少需要动一点脑筋才能解开的谜题，并且在各种地方埋下了彩蛋，鼓励玩家向上攀登到地图的最高点、向下探索到地图的最深处，但这些内容，也不影响到玩家通关主线流程，换言之，作者把探索的愿望、决定权都留给了玩家，而非为了让玩家体验到游戏的所有内容，强迫玩家经历并非每个人都愿意经历的流程。

总而言之，既然是一款针砭独立游戏业界时弊的游戏，可以看出、本作的作者在设计游戏时，也在有意地规避那些独立游戏开发者常常犯的错误。这使得游戏本身形成了一种双重支撑：其一，游戏本身在传达、什么样的游戏是一款好游戏、什么样的游戏不是；另一方面，游戏本身，也在尽可能地恪守作者对独立游戏的那些想法。玩家能够从中找到乐趣、开发者也能从中学到经验。尽管它的美术、音乐没有多么出色，但其展现出的灵性，也足以让其成为独立游戏教科书一般的存在。无论是主打什么类型的游戏的玩家，只要对独立游戏有兴趣，都应当来赏玩这款游戏，以在收获乐趣的同时、增广见闻、拓宽思路。

以下内容虽然涉及到本人的评论，但涉及大量剧透内容，对此介意的读者、在通关之前，不必、也不建议继续读下去。

不得不说，虽然本人购买了大量的Steam游戏、也深度玩过上百部Steam游戏，其中不乏独立游戏。但本作对我个人鉴赏独立游戏的看法，产生了很深的影响。因而，本段内容既是在叙述游戏剧情、也是在表达我的看法，算是对剧情的一个阅读理解。因此，以下文字的不可避免地涉及剧透。我会在叙述我的阅读理解的同时，穿插性地叙述剧情，仅供读者参考。
独立游戏最大的特色之一，就是来自制作人的深度影响。从开发者的立场去看，就是开发者所拥有的高度自由。事实上，这二者是同义的。但一部良心的独立游戏，不可能将玩家的心完全排除在外，这就是本作所表达的一个最重要的思想。本作的故事舞台，发生在一个跟本作同名的、游戏中的游戏《魔法圈（The magic circle）》之上。它的制作人Ish Gilter，是一位明星制作人。然而，这样一款游戏，却在不间断的公告、软文中，开发进度停滞不前，向玩家拖更18年还没有问世。这就是游戏的开始的背景。在游戏剧情推进的过程中，玩家渐渐地开始了解到这个制作人、以及制作团队的情况。可以说，本游戏的剧情，熔各种独立游戏开发的问题于一炉，展现了坏的开发者人群里的世间百态，以下由浅入深，将探讨本作中、这些独立游戏开发的种种问题：

• 封闭的开发环境：开发者极力避免谈及游戏的实际开发情况、甚至开发团队的情况，以至于出现粉丝、为了刺探情报，伪装成实习生，混进开发组里这种事。而这种保密的背后，其实是游戏开发进展近乎为零。《魔法圈》里的世界，充斥着没有上色的地图、充当placeholder的假人、不会说话的boss、一踏上就当场暴毙的bug地块、以及平衡性离谱的怪物。
  
• 开发团队内的裂隙：在开发效率低下的背景下，开发团队内不同的成员，根据自己的理解，对自己的工作各执一词，甚至有成员选择出走。为了填补不足的人手，Ish Gilter甚至不惜招收毫无开发经验的实习生，而这又进一步拖慢游戏的开发进程。游戏的核心开发成员之一Maze，在刚刚加入团队的时候，还是一个对Ish Gilter充满崇拜、对游戏充满期望和热情的人，但《魔法圈》的故事开始的时候，Maze已经成为了一个对Ish Gilter应付了事、成日混吃等死的闲人。可以说，Ish Gilter其实已经离心离德，他唯一剩下的，仅仅是这个陈酿了18年的IP而已。
  
• 制作人不切实际的想法：游戏没有提及Ish Gilter的过去，但他种种的作为显示，他是一个有颇多想法的人，《魔法圈》的企划几乎由他一人牵头。然而，此人的开发能力、项目经验、作为领导的责任感和其天马行空的想法完全不匹配。在《魔法圈》企划刚刚开始的时候，这部游戏还是一部星际探索题材的游戏。但Ish Gilter突然将整个项目推倒重来，甚至题材都变成了魔幻冒险。游戏内大量留下了大量旧版本内容被删除的痕迹，这些被删除的数据都将被玩家一一恢复出来，成为Ish Gilter的耻辱。
  
• 欺骗性的社区引导：在游戏开发停滞不前的情况下，Ish Gilter却不忘不断给玩家、或者IP粉丝灌输游戏值得期待的假象。此人狂妄自负，在社区自封“星之父”，并且受到一众粉丝的追捧。他本人在游戏开发的事上、除了一通瞎指挥、可谓毫无建树，却把大量的精力用在发布社区视频里。他掩盖游戏几乎不完全的事实，用零星的画面、勾起玩家的期待，并借此长期维持在粉丝中的热度。此人甚至还不忘用一个临时拼凑的游戏场景去参加E3展会，好让玩家觉得游戏有新内容，但实际上这些内容根本没有出现在游戏本体里。他沉迷于享受被关注的喜悦里，却全然不顾这在团队内部造成的分歧和压力，务虚不务实到了极点。Ish Gilter对自己的作为也毫无责任感，他在十几年前，就已经向粉丝兜售了星际题材的周边。但直到他被粉丝拿着这些周边围攻的时候，他才想起来有这么回事。
  
• 混乱的玩家社区：看似玩家内，有以Coda这样的玩家为代表的核心玩家，他们在诉诸自己的诉求、在围攻Ish Gilter上极为团结，但真的当游戏IP落到这些玩家手上的时候，他们却各自为政、完全不顾游戏的开发状况，最后把游戏弄得一团糟。这段内容其实暗示了，开发者将大部分的开发内容，委托给社区mod，也是一种不切实际的做法。
  
• 独立游戏的主权属于谁：这是这部游戏最引人深思的问题。直觉上，可能人很容易会以为，独立游戏的主权完全在IP持有人、也就是制作人身上。如果制作人也这么认为，那么无论游戏进度如何缓慢，成果如何拉跨、团队如何摆烂，都似乎成了和别人无关的事。独立游戏的开发者自以为，既然自己享有主权，那无论游戏变成什么样，都是别人无法置喙的。但实际上，这根本是一种消极怠工式的错误。以上的大部分问题，根源其实都是制作人没有摆正自己的位置，欠缺对玩家、社区、甚至游戏本身的责任感的结果。本作用一种很辛辣的方式，讽刺了这样的开发者：如果你开发的游戏里的角色活过来了，ta看到你这一副要死不活的样子，也会鄙视你；指望像你这样开发游戏的态度，甚至还不如指望让游戏主角活过来自己把游戏做完。制作人固然拥有对游戏的主权，但他们其实需要牢记，作为开发者，责任感其实是一种道德，即使你没有众筹或EA，不需要向玩家负责，也应该向你自己的游戏负责，而非把制作人的头衔，当作满足自己虚荣心的工具。

那么说到最后，本作的作者有没有给出自己的解决方案呢？其实是有的，对于这种长期停滞的工程，

1. 开发者最需要做的，其实是先回应玩家的期待，尽早上线可以玩的游戏版本。为此，甚至可以将游戏本身拆成多章节发售，每一章节的发售都处于玩家的监督和见证之下，这才能证明这个IP是足够值得期待的。
   
2. 玩家也不需要游戏做到十分的完美，一个不完美的、完成的游戏，好过几十、上百看似完美、实际空无一物的许诺。
   
3. 一部好游戏，首要的是游戏本身的素质、精致，而非各种难以实现的创意。游戏的内容，也要充分考虑到可玩性，要尽可能调动玩家的游玩热情，妥善安排游戏的节奏、剧情、音乐和其它细节，这些内容能做好，已经足够称之为好游戏了。有创意的想法固然是一个加分项，但没有游戏本身的质量过硬，这样的想法实际上是无法达到预期效果的。

有鉴于此，这部游戏值得大家的见证，游戏开发者更要以其中的故事为戒，这样才能缔造一个健康、积极的游戏社区环境。

This game sat on my wishlist for a year or so after I first played the demo, and after finally getting to play it, I am very satisfied. The Magic Circle might not be very long (I have about 4 hours of playtime on record to finish), or mind-blowing in any way, but it is, in fact, incredibly unique. The mechanics are interesting, the story was good, and there was even some puzzles in there that I didn't really expect.

Pros:
+ The story. This is a game about game devs working on a twenty-year long video game project with an "auteur" who won't allow his "vision" to get tampered with by his former pro-gamer coworker and their spunky intern. You are a playtester who starts mucking around in the code and...
+ The mechanics: ...bringing back formerly "deleted" enemies and scenery and stealing attributes like fire attacks, and adding yourself to its list of allies. I made a mushroom hop around and a key breathe fire. By the end, I had a horde of allies following me around and fighting my battles.
+ Meta-humor. Tons of references about game development hell, with things like a DOOM-esque sci-fi area that you can explore (complete with pixely goodness) from an abandoned version of the game, game devs arguing about how the player can beat the final battle without a sword, storyboards and sketches, notes from the devs about unfinished levels, etc.
+ Puzzles. There was definitely more of a puzzle aspect than I suspected after playing the demo! Pleasant surprise!
+ Secrets to find. Hidden bits of story, upgrades for your minions.

Neutral:
~ There are basically two sections to the game: 1) A big open, interconnected world with lots of different areas and unlockable upgrades, story points, enemies to edit or fight. This was the main game and it was incredibly fun, but then... 2) There's a "level designer" bit, where you have to design a level with a good difficulty level and interest curve for another character to play through in order to finish the story. This was not quite as fun for me because it felt tedious, and a definite shift in the game's mechanics. You could still edit enemies, but there wasn't any skill to it. Basically, you set up the level, have the character playtest it, then debug it so it doesn't kill or bore him.

♥♥♥♥:
- Length. I could have done with a little longer gameplay, more areas to explore and more baddies. Overall, I was pretty satisfied with my play experience, but for some people (especially at full price), it might feel too short.

Overall: Very fun and unique, interesting mechanics. 9/10.

This is one of those games that really needs a "neutral opinion" option–but I lean towards negative, and here's why: it tries to get you invested in the idea of finishing and developing games, while being ceaselessly bitter and mean-spirited about the process of finishing and developing games. It also directs some vitriol against playing games, being fans of games–pretty much anything to do with games.

The writing bounces between funny and downright cool, and the voice acting is top notch all around, but it also spends a fair amount of time giving what seems like a sincerely cynical middle finger to both itself for existing and me for playing it. So the second-half message about how cool game development is and how I should give it a shot just doesn't jive, and the whole experience breaks down for me as a result. The writing doesn't kill the game by any stretch, but what I'm being told to feel and what I actually feel just don't add up.

That said, the core ability-swapping mechanic is pretty clever and the gameplay around it evolves very organically, and there were a couple of puzzles that made me feel like a genius for solving them. The final overworld puzzle was just tedious to attempt and frustrating to fail, but that was the exception to the rule. Really, pretty much everything about the gameplay is solid; if it were tied to a less bitter narrative, I'd give it an easy thumbs up. Although, at less than four hours to finish, $20 seems pretty high to me, so I'd recommend waiting on a sale regardless.

Final thoughts: as a game, it's fine. As an *experience,* I'd call it an inferior version of The Stanley Parable with great production values.

Çok tuhaf bir oyun olduğunu belirtmek lazım öncelikle. Mind♥♥♥♥ bir düzen ve senaryosu var; zaten böyle diyor "yarım bırakılmış oyun içerisinde hapis olmak" mı nedir... Bu farklı dünyada bulunup birkaç saatlik tecrübe yaşamak güzel görünüyor. Hele editleyebildiğiniz karakterleri kullanırken tam bir Overlord havasına girmek gayet eğlenceli.

My full review is here[davidyat.es].

In brief: Interesting both for its meta "game about games" content and ingenious central mechanic. Anyone who enjoyed The Stanley Parable or The Beginner’s Guide should definitely play this, and I’d also recommend it to fans of first-person puzzle games like Portal.

On the other hand, if you’re really upset by pixellated graphics, ugly monospaced fonts and deliberately unfinished and sloppy aesthetics in general, or can’t stand games with sub-five-hour playtimes, this may be one to skip.

Fantastic and clever satirical game about games stuck in development hell, developer malpractice, crowdfunding, player expectations and other such tropes that we see so frequently. Very meta and relevant. One of those games that the least you know about, the more enjoyable it is to jump in. Hadn't played something as original in a long time.

This cheap-looking indie turned out to be one of the best games that I've played this year.

Part Stanley Parable, part Portal, part The Beginner's Guide, with plenty of features of its own. Without going into details, the story delves into the difficulties of game-development, and manages to be both funny and thought-provoking. At times I laughed so hard that I nearly choked, The voice-acting is amazing, and your... uh, sidekick?... is one of the best that I've seen.

Not without its flaws: it's relatively short for this price range, and the single-save system means that you can't easily replay portions of the game. But overall, highly recommended.

I mean this game does alot of good points on how the game biz is today, and its still pretty relvent yet today,
And i was sold on this game playing the demo,

And well the game was pretty short, and its a steal on sale.

Gameplay
You get to modify monsters and either take over them or making them to do nothing just sitting there,
and there is some moments where you have to use the modifying aspects to advance in the game.
Voice acting is pretty solid,

Performence the game ran great, but this game isent crysis of graphics,
Option menu dident have alot of choices, but i guess it was intentional,

Personally i highly recommend this game if you have played alot of games and you have a understanding of the refrences and jokes of gaming/media culture, otherwise it will fly straight over your head,

did i complete the game in 4 hours, sure,
but it sure was a good 4 hours, so full price questionable,
Sale buy it without a doubt,

I have to say. While i did enjoy my experience for in this game. I was completely shocked that i beat it in the short amount of time that i did. If this game was 5 dollars then i wouldn't really be writing a review about it. sbu

It is very cool, it's a very neat idea i will give it that. I wanted to play this, i wanted to see what i could do. Then i found out there isn't much at all. This whole game could have been so much more. But you basically did what the game itself did. Released something that was sub par at best.

If you wanna spend the money and have the income to do so, i say go for it. But for everyone else, just watch a lets play on youtube it won't take you very long.

7/10

The Magic Circle is a satirical, first-person exploration game. You play as a playtester, exploring an unfinished game that has been repeatedly scrapped in various phases of development. By befriending an in-game entity, you learn to manipulate the environment and creatures within the game, to learn more about the developers and history of the title.

This core of the gameplay is fascinating, locating creatures and swapping properties in and out like a mad scientist. You will often need to locate a particular creature to steal its ability in order to progress or defeat a tough enemy. In some ways it is a creative puzzle game. Often, the combinations you create are hilarious. As an added bonus, you can name your new creations (what would you like to call your flying dog with a railgun for a mouth?).

If the game were limited in scope to only focus on this core, it would likely be a better game. However, there is another plot, a conflict between the developers, that I found less intriguing. Though this culminates in a very entertaining scene, I still felt that the title would have been better without it. The game attempts to make an argument about "ownership" when players begin to feel they have a better understanding of the game world than its initial creator (think if viewers decided that certain aspects of a new Game of Thrones book were inappropriate, and wrested control of writing and publication from George RR Martin). I can't say that the attempt falls completely flat, but I will say that The Beginner's Guide does a much better job exploring this theme.

However, the gameplay in the Beginner's Guide is nowhere near as engaging as the Magic Circle. It's worth a play if you'd like to try a puzzle game that's quite different than most, but I can't say that it provided any new or grand insights to me on game development.

This is an Early Access review.
A game in development about a game in development Hell.



For full disclosure, I bought this game purely because James Urbaniak is in it. But when I began playing it, I realized it's one of the most unique and entertaining games I've played in a long, long time. Its story and its ideas are so strange it's hard to explain, but that is not a bad thing.

You take the role of a playtester working for some developers who simply cannot get their ideas aligned and cannot get along with each other. There's more to the game than meets the eye, though, and soon the game takes a darker, more personal turn.

The gameplay consists of a lot of puzzles, but instead of working with the game mechanics, you change the game mechanics around you to get through the unfinished game.
The graphics aren't anything too fancy on a technical level, but the designs make up for it. The combination of styles and the selective use of color make it very visually pleasing.
The music is quite good as well. A lot of the game is ambient noise, but when the music does play it always enhances the mood. For once, I'm actually going to listen to a soundtrack steam gave me.
The dialogue is very funny, very meta, and very well-acted. The characters' personalities are entirely conveyed through voice, and it is done VERY well.

The Magic Circle is something you have to play to fully understand. The ideas it discusses and the moral dilemmas it brings up are continuously interesting, and I had a lot of fun playing it.

A very interesting thing with genuinely unique ideas and mechanics. The setup is that you're an unnamed playtester on a game that's been stuck in development hell for years. You end up with 'debug' powers in the game world and need to use these to progress, while playing witness to the squabbling between the major actors in the game's development; which gives you an insight into the painful history of it all. This setup is used to good effect right from the beginning (e.g. you spawn and pick up the sort of legendary sword you'd expect in such circumstances and then it's almost instantly wrenched from your grasp by the lead designer after an argument about whether the game should even have any combat or not) and all throughout we get skewerings of familiar concepts like crowd-funding, ridiculous fan demands, etc. Mechanically though it's also very interesting and well put together. Your debug powers don't extend to changing anything about your own avatar; but what you can do is trap and edit the attributes of all NPCs in the game. This is handled through a toggling interface rather than actual code cutting but the upshot is that all the behaviours and armaments of the objects you encounter can be tweaked and buffed, with the caveat that you can only use things you've already encountered. Want to create an army of hovering attack dogs that use the fire-proof properties of rocks and will attack mushrooms on sight? Have at it! This leads to a sandbox-y approach to problem solving and the games makes experimentation suitably easy so you never fear just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ around. If I had any complaint it would be that there's just not enough of this and it seems to end just as you're properly motoring with it all. Oh, and there's one attack type which is almost game-breakingly powerful once you work out how it functions. The upside to that is the game never outstays it's welcome and I think most people here would get a lot of fun out of this 'game about making games'.

I bought this game only after seeing 20 minites of gameplay from someone on youtube and have not regretted it since. The story was fantastic and thought provoking and the puzzles were very, very non-traditional and it really gives you a big aha moment every time you figure out a new mechanic or trick. The best part is, you feel like you came up with your own solution and not the one everyone else will come up with. There are multiple ways of traversing the game and it becoems very non linear later on. There is no way to describe the uniqueness of this game in text, it is a must play if you want something fresh.

Pros
-Fantastic puzzle design
-Very unique mechanics
-Non linear story progression and level fluidity
-Tons of hidden patchs and story
-Stuff to do after the main story is done, and it is really interesting stuff! (No spoilers)
-Deep character development if secret story is found, which isnt that hard most the time

♥♥♥♥
-Main story will take 3-5 hours
-The end section may be really confusing or frustrtating to some if you have trouble thinking outisde the box

This game is not for people who want a cool story you can fly through without thought. The story is very cool but requires a lot of thought to get it all, not really to understand but to acquire it through special means (No Spoilers!) This game is for those who love to think abstractly or love crazy and unique game mechanics, all wrapped up with a great story!

The Magic Circle is a game I want to love. It's smart, funny (most of the time), and quite original in concept and execution. Unfortunately, it's a chore to play. The puzzles are either too easy or impossible to guess, and the enemies have a very steep difficulty curve near the endgame. I never finished The Magic Circle, because I simply got bored.
So why am I recommending it?
Because despite its serious flaws, there are some totally original ideas explored here, that I haven't seen in any other game. Using the inner drama of a game dev studio to create in-game tension is either totally genius or totally insane, but definitely new. The Magic Circle isn't a good game, but hopefully it will inspire some people into making something better.

That was a fantastic experience.
It tells the story of development hell from all sides, including _inside_ that game.
I just finished the game (but not 100%, which I'd like to try for, for reasons) and my face hurts from smiling.
Best game experience I've had in months.

If you're a gamer and have interest in RPG/Adventure games from the 80s/90s this will be an amazing experience.
If you're a gamer at all, it will be almost as amazing, but somewhat less hilarious.

Anything more I could say would be spoilers.

Just get it.

I loved this game. It has a witty, self-aware story and fun gameplay to boot. The ending is really neat narratively and technically.

Not very far in yet, but wow, I am really enjoying this one. It is definitely dark and making me kinda chuckle. Got it during the Steam sale, though.

As Nero said at the end of The Matrix Reloaded: "Wow".

这游戏黑白画风，玩家可以探索这个世界
而且还能体验闪屏的乐趣
（I guess The graphics card is burned）

Its a good game, I love the humor in it. The gameplay is fun as well. But I don't really feel its worth the $20 they are asking for. I beat the game in 2 hours. So if you are looking for a fun little adventure I would reccomend this, but I would wait untill it is on sale and buy it then, like I did

This game is just solidly okay -- and it's pretty expensive to be okay.

Pros:
-The premise of the game is fantastic and is well executed throughout
-The voice acting is excellent
-The use of powers (i.e. the ways you fight / interact with the world) is pretty interesting throughout
-The ability to trap monsters and have them fight for you is neat (sort of Pokemon-ish)

♥♥♥♥:
-The game is REALLY short. Really really short. I beat it in < 2 hours.
-The level design is atrocious. Seriously. It's worse than some early 90s FPSes. A significant amount of my playtime was spent being lost.
-It thinks it's smarter than it is. The conceit of the game (you're trapped inside a game that has been dragging on in development for 10 years) is interesting but the main characters are insufferable and a lot of the writing is overwrought.
-It is absolutely and completely without challenge. You could watch a Let's Play of the game and have nearly the same experience as playing it, albeit without the whole "getting lost" part.
-I really cannot overstate how bad the level design is.

Overall if you can buy the game for <$5 it's probably worth it. At the normal retail price it's just ridiculous. And honestly the further I get from the game the less kind I am to it. It's really profoundly mediocre which is sad as I love the idea behind it.

Game is a bit short (took around 4 hours to finish it) but it was fun. Interesting concept about enemies, why should kill them if i can make them my allies ? Why shouldn't I add flying option for rat and give it a railgun ?
In this game you will not test your gaming skills or master them. This is some kind of mix between Stanley Parable and portal (couln't come up with better example). Most of enjoyment comes from narrator and interactions between main NPC's and of course solving small logical puzzles (example, how can i get to that point?), exploring and very small combat encounters (you cannot fight, but you have followers which do all the work).
Even though I liked this game, I do not recommend buying it for its full prize (20 euros). It was fun and good but not that much. If you see it sometimes with good discount, then pick it up, will not regret it (at least I didn't and hope you will not too).

This is really not what I expected (but mostly in a good way)! I got the impression from the trailer that it was largely a scripted story thing about a game changing over time, and certainly that's what the story is about, but a lot of the gameplay is actually more of a puzzle simulation thing, along the lines of Else Heart Break? There's certainly plenty of "scripted" situations, but even those are actually open to being solved several different ways, depending on what you have available and how determined you're feeling... The ending is a bit strange, but I think I like it! And you can probably tell this from the trailer, but the cast is fantastic; a few times I almost wished I wasn't having so much fun with optional puzzles, because I also wanted to hurry on to the next story beat...

A story game meets a puzzle game meets a simulation game meets a programming/hacking game; it does a lot, but each element doesn't demand too much if you aren't as into it, while also rewarding more attention if you are... a well-done weird experiment!

Ha sido sin duda una muy buena experiencia, y solo tengo un punto negativo para este juego: ♥♥♥ lo que cuesta (al menos ahora) es un poco caro para lo corto que se hace; pero hay que decir que la originalidad, las posibilidades de hacer lo que quieras, y la adiccion que te mete son tremendas!

Played this through 5 hours straight start to finish, and its honestly one of the strangest, most wonderful games I've ever played in my life.
I got so absorbed in this, its more an experience than a game!
Really, if you're thinking about playing this, go and do it right now... don't hesitate.

10/10, one of the most unique, imaginative games I've ever experienced.

It's a good game, the story is the main driving force, and it's extremely good. The game can be a little difficult at times, mainly from the fact that you really must think outside the box in order to beat some of the obscure puzzles. It also ends up having a variety of game mechanics that work together, so that you'll find some aspect to enjoy. If you enjoyed the portal games, or the Stanely parable, I suggest you buy this easily.
The downsides of this game are that it can be quite slow at times, and it effectively grinds to a halt at the end, but it's worth it. Seriously try it out, its good.

The Magic Circle is a quirky, delightful game that sees you exploring a perpetually in-development video game and tinkering with its code in order to learn more.

Though it's not the longest game, it's nevertheless an enjoyable one - the map has a lot to discover, the art style is wonderful, the progression based on splicing creatures' traits together makes for a lot of shenanigans, and the overall experience (shoutout to you-know-who's ending speech) is a fun romp 'til the end.

...my only real complaint is that the price as-is is just a little too high for the amount of content you get, but I think it's still worth it! Wait for a sale if you have to.

Yet another unfinished, buggy, poorly-made Early Access game which will likely never be finished... this is not. However, it is still presetning itself as one.

This may be the story of a broken, unfinished game. But the game which you play, the game about that game, is most certainly neither of these things.

Instead, it is a clever, charming puzzle game, in which every puzzle has no solution. No formal solution, at least, because the in-game dev characters haven't gotten around to finishing them.

However, with the tools you have at your disposal, it is possible to MacGyver yourself not just one, but a number of potential solutions to each obstacle. And that, in my opinion, paves the way for the greatest part of this game: the social aspect.

Sure, it feels great to come up with a clever way of traversing one of the puzzles. But it feels even better to then tell a friend your solution, only to find out that they never thought of using that method, and instead used some elaborate ticks of their own which you had never thought of.

And even without a friend who also plays this game, I can guarantee that anyone going through this game's story a second time will likely solve a number of puzzles a different way the second time around than they did the first.

Восхитительно. Замечательная история о жизни в геймдев-аду изнутри и снаружи. Уникальные механики, позволяющие многие пути решения проблем. Наверное, лучшее из подобного, во что я играл. Если вы обожаете мета-игры типа Stanley Parable или The Beginner's Guide, пройти мимо TMC будет кощунством. 10 огнедышащих ключей-вертолётов и коллективных камнеразумов с рельсопушками из 10.

Short and sweet. The game isn’t very long but if you enjoy exploring a unique world with some interesting gameplay mechanics and an intriguing story, you will definitely get your money’s worth. Without spoiling too much, the game definitely goes to some interesting and unexpected places.

Довольно неплохая, пусть и затянутая игра. Если вы не achievement-фрик, то the Magic Circle пройдётся довольно быстро и, скорее всего, оставит хорошие впечатления. В этой игре возможно получить все достижения за одно прохождение, хотя ради некоторых из них придётся постараться.

• Интересная история взаимоотношений персонажей
  
• Возможность сражаться, не сражаясь. В этой игре ты побеждаешь, но сам не "пачкаешь руки кровью врагов"
  
• Разнообразие форм жизни и возможностей их изменения
  
• Интересная концовка, оставляющая простор для воображения
  
• Противопоставление серой цветовой гаммы и разноцветной. Вторая весьма выгодно смотрится на фоне первой
  
• Харизматичный ПРО

• Полное прохождение игры отнимает много времени и под конец весьма скучное
  
• Есть пара багов. Они описаны в обсуждениях, однако всё же неприятно сталкиваться с ними

Подводя итоги, скажу, что игра стоящая, хотя могла бы стоить немного дешевле. 4,7/5,0

I like and dislike this game at the same time, and for the same reason. On one hand, I enjoy how it tells a side of story that's never been told before; on the other hand, I am tired of the amount of self-aware commentary games that sort of exploded after Stanley Parable.

Magic Circle, like many of its kind, has the entire game built around this one novelty. But without a refined, tried-and-true machenics to back it up, it only takes a few games before novelty become cliche. Look past all the little narrative tricks, what's left is a very boring game in a ugly, poorly made world. (Though it's very convenient that a poorly made world sort of fit its plot.)

Made me think about the lines drawn between game community, designers, producers, technical staff and QA engineers more closely than I have before. Compelling gameplay that feels...seamless to tell a fairly subtle story at times. Throwback elements (without giving spoilers) made me squeal with glee. I'm calling it, this is my favourite game of 2015!

This game is clever and fun. I highly recommend it. It even has a demo, and the demo gives you a good feeling for the gameplay! You play as an entity within an almost-finished game; the developers of the game (within the game, not the real developers...) can't get it finished because they're too busy bickering and being insane to make decisions. The story is compelling, and the characters are believable and interesting. The voice acting is absolutely perfect. Seriously, just try the demo, if you like it, then you'll like the game; if you don't like the demo, then I don't know what's wrong with you.

The closest thing I could compare this game to is a cross between Scribblenauts and A Beginner's Guide. My only complaint is that walking feels a hair too slow, like if a sprint button did exist but it was scrapped in the process.

No game I have ever played has done what this game has. The story isn't about beating a bad guy, it's about being a random person interacting with a sadly unfinished game who can take manual control of many of the "game" features and twist them into a finished product or one so badly broken that everyone lashes out at the guy in charge of it all and pulls it from his undecided grasp. The gameplay is a mix of your standard puzzle games with a healthy dose of new and interesting mechanics that you wont find anywhere else. If you enjoyed any nontraditional puzzle game experience, this is a must play game for you. I would probably wait for it to go on sale because it doesn't have much replayability after you finish it. (I did everything you could in less that 12 hours, I just spent extra time taking in the fantastic game world) I cannot recommend this game enough.

A little confusing, but compelling. Graphically some interesting choices. The sound was great, I like when a game makes me take my headphones off thinking I may have heard something in real life.

I didn't always know what the heck I was doing and the game mechanics are a little bit learn-as-you-go. They teach you the basics, and you have the freedom to use the tools and entities available in lots of ways. It's nice to know that there is not just one way to solve a puzzle.

I just finished it, and I'm already thinking of revisiting it to see how I may have done things more effectively, or try some crazy combinations just for fun.

The key to playing is definitely exploring the map. You will need to collect tools/behaviours in order to progress.

The voice acting was absolutely wonderful. Voice actors are worth every penny.

This game has no shortage of surprises. Even when it was over(?), there was still some interesting tidbits.

An experience unlike almost any other.

Ich hab die Hauptstory jetzt nach gut 3 Stunden durch. Habe allerdings noch nicht alles gefunden und ich nehme an ich kann das letze Level unabhängig von der Story noch spielen.

Ich muss sagen, dass mir der Grafik-Style eher weniger gefällt aber für die Story von nöten ist daher akzeptiere ich das mal. :D
Ansonsten muss ich sagen die Story war echt absolut cool, es stehen einem wirklich viele Möglichkeiten die 'Aufgaben' zu Lösen zur verfügung und die Art und Weise wie man mit der Welt rumspielen kann hat ebenfalls etwas. Abgesehen davon finde ich die Charaktere sehr gut ausgebaut, vor allem der Pro.

Zuguterletzt wollte ich mich schon immer mal in den Credits bei einem Spiel sehen :D

Abschließend würde ich das Spiel auf jedenfall empfehlen und würde sagen die größte Stärke des Spiels ist es einen doch immer wieder zu überraschen.

Tipp: Man kann auf Steinen stehen. Das war einer der Punkte, wo ich hängen geblieben bin...

Should have won the "Game Within a Game" Award.

I'm not sure what I just played. But I recommended this game.

This game is fantastic. It's unlike anything you have ever played and it is deeply emergent and wonderfully humorous. It has top notch voice acting; compelling mechanics and is made by some of the guys who worked on stuff like the Bioshock Games and Dishonored.

Approach problems your own way. There is really no "wrong way" to solve a puzzle.
There is no "cheap" solution. Every path you take and solution you find is a viable as any other.

I'm biased as hell. But buy this game. Its something special.

I would recommend this game, but not at full price. I would say spend no more than $15. But, to be fair, it's still cheaper than a night out at the movies.

+ Excellent script
+ Stunning voice acting
+ Unique gameplay
+ Tight story
+ Smooth transitions (hardly any load time after death or teleport)

- Editing mechanic gets repetitive
- Not a lot of replay value
- What was the Hiver Queen's purpose?

Great concept for a game, great mechanics, but not much actual game.

Like Double Fine's Hack n' Slash, this is a game about being trapped in a computer game where you win by editing the game world and bypassing normal game play. 90% of what you do is editing monsters so they're friendly and fight for you, and maybe fiddling a bit with how they move and fight.

Unfortunately, it's undercooked. It took me a bit under 4 hours to finish all of the "game" part of the game, where you're the player. What I didn't finish was the after-game, where you're supposed to design a level for a bot to play through. The bot reviews the level after it finishes, and you "win" the game once it gives you a 10/10 score. The problem is I found that segment dull and arbitrary, so I just quit at that point.

I did find the experience interesting overall, but given how little there is to the game ultimately, I find it impossible to recommend unless you get it nearly for free in a bundle or something.

I found a key that was supposed to be later used to unlock a door. Instead of picking it up and carrying it, i gave it the ability to move, made it my ally, and gave it a rail gun as a weapon. I have yet to find a better key.

if you like zombies, you can make those! If you like flying things (or flying on things) you can make those too! Nothing really compares to it. It’s a really unique game - and, yes, it is a game - a very fun exploration / puzzle game.

9.5/10

Wow... Where do I even begin...
A friend gifted this game to me because he'd purchased a bundle, and he already had this game. (Bless his soul <3.) I didn't know this game, but I knew the name. So I hit the dowload button, and loaded it up. The menu screen was so bland... I was like, "This is gonna suck." But then after the inital cut scene started, I knew this game was gonna be something else. Essentially, you are playing an old abondoned game that had broken mechanics. And you don't want these fictional "developers" to sell the game. So, you have to modify the creatures in the game to... help. The creatures have tons of customizing you can do, like how they move, how they fight, who they fight, who they don't fight. Sounds confusing and hard to learn... but no. I've tried hundreds of times to give programing and that sort of stuff a try, and this felt so easy. The characters are lovable and the acting is beautiful. I love the idea of no combat, and that you need to upgrade your pets to win puzzles.

Pros:
+ Lots of different companions
+ Customizations
+ Variety of puzzles and problems
+ Numerous ways to solve
+ Lively, realistic characters
+ Fun, gameplay for any skill level

♥♥♥♥:
- Not very much, if any, replay value

Yup, that's my only complaint. Do I think it's worth the price? Absolutely. These people deserve the amount of detail they put into drawing you the player into this world that you get so invloved with. We need more of these games.

The Magic Circle is the the closest thing to an advancement of whatever genre Portal is since… well, since Portal. It’s not Portal, though. It’s kind of an RPG in the same way that Portal is a First Person Shooter. The trappings of its mechanics are within the recognised mechanics from a million first-person RPG games, but that’s wrapped inside a well-devised universe with well-written characters, and the actual gameplay is spun out at 90 degrees from that. If I had to add another game’s influence to cite, The Stanley Parable is where I’d go next.

And I can’t say a lot more than that about it. The game is a metafiction, as you can see from the mostly-in-universe website. In-universe, The Magic Circle is the long awaited, long delayed sequel to a massively beloved twenty-year-old text-based adventure game (Real-world touchstones: Ultima, Bards Quest, Fool’s Errand). The author of that game is a classic games-autor white-bearded-male, who has taken on the avatar of the great God within the game – the Skyfather – but whose twenty-year promises of future games are starting to ring hollow. Veteran gamers will instantly recognise the heavy flavours of Richard Garriott in the character’s history, along with strong notes of Peter Molyneux and even to people like Cliff Johnson, and here you start, as a player given early access to this massively long awaited sequel to a hugely popular game. Except there are some assets which look… strange in context. Something isn’t quite right. The trailer hints at this fairly well.



The game plays a lot with concepts of game space, of being inside which game. It has a lot to say about narrative vs mechanics (coming from former Bioshock developers, there’s an air of critical catharsis which I would suspect more of being dirty laundry if they hadn’t got Ken Levine to voice a character), game development, fandom, actually getting things done and the sorrow of half finished universes.

It took me about 6 hours of playtime to get through it, and while that’s quite short, it’s fully formed and… complete, really. There’s a lot there, and a late twist that spins a lot of the game on its head.

It’s in early access at the moment, but as I say the game is complete. Early Access is an early release before they’ve got the translations down, which will take a while to finish and collate – there’s a lot of there there – and as far as I could tell all the glitches were intentional (it is, in part, a game about inserting your gameplay crowbar into the cracks of the world).

You should play this game. I hope they release a demo too, but don’t watch Lets Plays, don’t watch it streaming.

… And that’s it, really. There’s some deeper stuff about the mechanics, about juxtapositioning, about commentary that I’ll get into eventually, but so much of what’s cool is tied heavily narrative-based modification of the mechanics, and I like the story too much to spoil it for you without giving people a chance to buy it first.

Отличная игра, которая незаслуженно неизвестна. Особо ни о чем не скажу, т.к. лучше поиграть самому.
Саудтрек, сюжет, геймплей - все на отличненько. Рекомендую.

Played for about 30 minutes as part of my Let's Play My Steam Library playlist for my Youtube channel. Check out the video: https://youtu.be/cveOKFJXXm4

Absolutely wonderful game with a brilliant story and fantastic game mechanics. If you like meta humor, you'll love this. Art style is magnificent and complements the story perfectly. Definitely must play this.

NOT recommended for young children. Contains...
Scenes of violent death with blood - if a bit graphically non-realistic, still poignant.
This is definitely a game. Not just a simulation of a game. But a real game.

Such awesome mechanics! They feel fleshed out and well executed. Very excited to play this one through. Controls are on point - no complaints.
No complaints about the sound either. Very nice, and fits the story well.
I absolutely love the unfinished art style of this game. And the color effects as you gain life - so awesome. Such a fantastic job!
And then this... If the other items above were great, this part is phenomenal. If you like meta humor and video games, you will love this story. I was laughing from the beginning. Great humor and such a wonderful way to introduce a story.
This goes with the story - so freaking awesome! Very well done.
There is some darker humor. But mostly I would worry about the violence and death. That's probably what would stop a parent from letting their child play this. Right?
1- don't buy; don't waste your time
2- buy only when on a great sale (75% off or <$5)
3- you should give it a shot; buy it on sale; if you like this genre
4- definitely play this game

Qui ne serait pas perturbé à l'idée d'être réduit à un "héros" de jeu-vidéo?
Une combinaison complexe de 0 et de 1, mais qu'est-ce-que l'humain sinon de l'information et qu'est-ce-que l'information sinon une combinaison de 0 et de 1 ?

Bref...
Et c'est ainsi qu'avant que vous ne vous prêtiez à utiliser ou ramasser n'importe quoi, des "dieux" apparaissent et vous rappelle à l'ordre.

Des "dieux" ou des usurpateurs ? Finalement l'écart n'est pas si ténu entre les deux...
Mais voilà qu'au moment de palper de la chair binaire avec une épée trouvée par terre, ces "dieux" vous font la morale et modifient votre destin.

Avatar rebelle et curieux, les directives de ces odieux personnages bien que charmants vous intrigueront et vous menerez votre propre enquête.

Ish, maze, coda ? Développeur, narrateur ou stagiaire ou même "dieu"? Qu'importe puisque j'ai le pouvoir d'interagir avec l'ADN de vos créations et de les retourner contre vous.
Je manipule le 0 et le 1 pour parvenir à toutes mes fins, je suis le nouveau "dieu" qui va vous destituer et comprendre l'envers de l'univers avec l'aide de mon vieux pro, et je vous apprendrai comment engendrer une démo digne de ce nom, non "bugguée".

Les couleurs ne sont pas là mais ce sont vos yeux qui les imagineront, à moins que vous ne décidiez de subir les engeances rémanentes.

De toute beauté, doom-like puzzle ultra-original et parfait!!

Amazing despite being a bit short, I would recommend this game to anyone, especially long-time gamers looking for something new. My only complaint about it is I wish it was longer, because there's so much to work with here that could make for plenty more interesting content. I definitely think this should be a required play for any and everyone considering developing their own games...though, as an artist myself, it's a good play for any sort of creator. It definitely makes you think.

Conceptually I love the premise of The Magic Circle (this game), I also love the concept of Huizinga's Magic Circle/Virtual Worlds. Playing this game as a game designer myself, I was really interested to see how this meta-game-design game would play out and unfortunately it fell a bit short.

First of all I want to say that I didn't overly dislike this game, I just think it was fairly cringy in a few areas which really hindered my experience.

The voice actors were instantly recognisable, and their delivery was great. It was the story and the script, trying to be this deep meta-design exploration is where it fell short. Either via the cringy monologues from the character Ish, or the streamer pixie dream girl character Coda and Ex-Esports chartacter. The writing is over the top, and really detracts from the nice elements of this game. The game would have been infinitely better if the story was spread out more, and the writing wasn't so 'melodramatic'. No fan, now employee would act like this. No designer would act like this... I understand the commentary but this was done poorly.

What I liked was the puzzles based around rewriting NPC's in the world. The graphics were nice, both in the black and white, and the old pixel form. The mechanics surrounding the life system was new and interesting. The end of the game actually has you make your own small level, and it has a interest meter which also was a really nice way to think about games. Its just a shame the Coda, Ish story dampened the experience.

If there was less of the actual 'fake designers' in this game, I would recommend it. Instead, I had to push myself to play it. In other words, my meter was set to numb every time a character spoke.

Bought this on discount and still disappointed. Sorry.

While I really like the concept, and at many (most?) points could tell what the developers were going for, the actual gameplay involved in completing this meta-game was middling at best. The ability scheme had some promise, but I used almost no powerups, and barely 1/4 of the abilities (mainly due to some confusion about how they worked, and the lack of really easy areas to experiment with them)
There's quite a bit of tonal whiplash as you collect dialog out-of (or even, frankly, in-) sequence, going from mostly goofy to reaching for emotionally-serious to heartfelt earnestness and back in the space of a minute. The game is a proxy for an infertile intellectual's child... oh wait another character might end up in an unsolicited orgy hahalol but now my reliable? narrator is dropping f-bombs to undercut everyone else's narration so.... ???

To like this game, you're going to have to like walking simulators, and be willing to accept everything above. I mostly enjoyed it, but I don't think most would.

There's a handful of games that I've played over the years where I've gone in blind, and been glad that I did, because no review could have done it justice. This is one of those games, so if you're at all amenable to the idea, stop reading and just play this now.

If you *insist* on more information: it's a first-person puzzle game, with the unusual feature that most situations can be solved in many different ways by creatively combining abilities. They even say quite early on, if you feel like you're cheating, you're doing it right. It's fun.

The writing is the real treat though - a warm, personal narrative about people in the video games industry. It's backed up by gorgeous but deliberately janky and retro graphics. This is, like The Stanley Parable and Dr Langeskov (...), a video game about video games.

If I have one complaint about this game, is that it ended to soon. You can easily beat this in 6-8 hours. However, each of those hours is an absolute blast, finding new creatures, ripping their abilities from them (leaving them a neutered version of their former glory), and sticking them onto your favorite helicoptering railgun shooting rock.

This is a fantastic representation of art as a video game. It plays very much like so many other nameless games yet is completely different. It is different on a similar level as the Stanley Parable. But it is much more fun to play. There is an actual game layered into this piece of artistic expression. There is also some pretty compelling philosophy backing the narrative.

This is one of those games that you really do need to experience to understand why it is so intriguing.

I completed my first playthrough in just under 3 hours. I'm glad it was relatively short, as well. This is the type of game that is best taken in one sitting. You're really going to miss out on what the game is trying to tell you if you don't play the whole thing in one sitting.

I absolutely recommend this game.
Hell, it is a definite contender for my top indie game of 2015.

If you're not willing to shell out the bucks for it because you aren't sure if it will be your thing then download the demo. Taste the water for yourself and then make the plunge if you like what you see.

I remember hearing about this through Jim Sterling a long while back and have had it in my wishlist since then. I finally got around to playing it, and... whoa.
The game itself is guenuly interesting, and has quite and interesting romp throughout. Being able to trap and alter monsters to help you in overcoming challenges is quite a nice feat. It also adds a puzzle element to the game, as you will need to use your creatures to overcome certain challenges. Such as finding an entity with Flameproof to fight the active Flammers. Once you manage to take control of one of the "Sky Bastards", you'll be finding yourself in a game making room, as you try to make dungeons for Pro and your fans to play through. As a game dev hopefully, I honestly like this, even if I think more depth could've been put into it. Still, it is a bit of fun to get through, and the story does do a good job of showing how easily ideas get thrown around and scrapped.
I do have a couple complants: the backtracking in the overworld can get incredibly tedious, especally when Life becomes and issue. Warping helps, but only by so much. The other complant is that the mouse sensitivity is WAY to high. I'd recommend turning it down before playing, otherwise your screen will zip right by.
Overall, I give this a very positive review.

The Magic Circle adlı oyunun 20 yıldır yapım aşamasında öyleki yapımcılar daha gökyüzünün rengini bile kararlaştıramamışlardır.Bizim yani oyuncunun rolü beta-tester olarak oyunu test etmek demoyu bitirmemiz için oyundan combat sistemi ve yol siliniyor ama Maze'in silmediği bir bug sayesinde ghost sistemiyle tanışıyoruz(öldükten sonra hayat enerjinizi doldurmadığınız sürece hayalet olarak devam ediyorsunuz ve silinen objeleri görebiliyorsunuz)ve bu şekilde testi bitrmemiz sağlanıyor işte oyun o andan itibaren başlıyor her şeyin başladığı yerde ana menüden başlıyor.Şimdi tanrıyı oynama sırası sizdedir.
+oyunda çok fazla olasılık var
+seslendirmeler başarılı
+seneryo gayet iyi erken erişime sunulan ve ilerleme kaydetmeyen olan oyunlara dayanan mizah
+gezilip keşfedilecek çok alan olmasada yeterli içerikle doldurulmuş
-kısa oynanış süresi
-düşük tekrar oynanabilirlik
-gideceğiniz yerleri algılamakta sıkıntı çekebiliyorsunuz

Son durum: eksileri var ama gerçekten oynarken üzerine düşünme ihtiyacı duymuyorsunuz.Tekrar oynanbilirliği düşük olsada geçirdiğiniz saatler keyifli olacak.Ve değindiği noktalarla gayet başarılı bir yapım.
Not:7.9/10 türü sevmeyenlere hitap etmeyen bir oyun ama eğer seneryo bazlı oyunları seviyorssanız kaçırmamanız gereken bir cevher.Ama eğer fırsatınız varsa ve oyun indirimdeyse hepinizin kütüphanesinde bulunmalı.

Buy this now guys
Only things you need to know
1. Ashly burch
2. Game about games
3. Ken Levine

what a game this is. i joke with my friends about how i break every game i play, so i got this solely because you are supposed to break things. there are some places i went to just to see how far i could push the game, only to be met with collectibles (most of the time, other times i fall to the void) so much story jam packed into a roughly 3.5 hour game.

well worth the money if youre like me and are a sucker for artistic storytelling and crazy 4th wall breaking games

Exploring an unfinished real fake game with a long, troubled history using the ability of hacking/editing enemies' attributes and the environment instead of lazy sword-slashing.
Great talents came together and created a very wholesome and fun experience.

A meta-game that manages to both tell a good story and provide lots of fun in the process. There are some really great ideas here that had me smiling numerous times. The goals are sometimes a bit unclear, especially after the initial hour or so of gameplay, but overall, I highly recommend it.

This game is short, but worth the experience as it continously subverts expectations. Every time you think you got a handle on what sort of game it is it shakes things up and becomes a different related game. The story is excellent and what ties everything together into a seamless whole.

If you're an old-time gamer who's seen everything, this game will surprise you.

This isn't nearly as funny or creative or entertaining as I thought it would be.

I'm running around an ugly grey maze looking for keys. Maybe I'm supposed to enjoy it because this is somehow meta-commentary on bad games that make you do the same thing? I don't know. It's still boring.

A game about making games. I really enjoyed my time with this game and it has a few interesting ideas behind it. It is quite short though and a lot of its individual parts could have been more fleshed out. At the end of the day this game is a short enjoyable experience and it's a shame more people don't know about it.

I'm writing this for the sole purpose of wrapping my head around the greatness of TMC. Not a review, but an amalgamation of thoughts, wrapped in words and with zero intent of being read by anyone.

Themes.

1. Absence creates presence.
The canvas here is the picture, like an alpha layer in an image editor, or as silence is what music is built on.
Lack of gameplay systems is the gameplay system. Lack of an art style makes up the the art style. Lack of a coherent story is the storyline. Lack of a finished score is the soundtrack. And the overall lack of polish was deliberately introduced to polish the whole experience.

2. Control.
Compromising control creates conflict. Taking it away from the player breaks suspension of disbelief by creating an entity that has control over them — the game dictates, you follow. The worst and most apparent offenders in the videogame trope list are the cutscenes. TMC gives this entity a face, a story arc and poses it as the main villain, with a bittersweet notion of that Ishmail is a necessary evil or a stepping stone in the development of the medium.

Uncompromised control also creates conflict. Giving away too much of it compromises the developers intent. TMC toys with it throughout by: a) mere existing; b) narrative shifts of control, from dev back to player back to dev back to fans back to player back to player who becomes the dev; c) leaving story pieces in places you have to "break" the game to get to. But TMC makes it even more apparent on the second playthrough, where you can breeze past cornerstones of the experience. Story doesn't even matter here, yet the setting and the main gameplay system still ties you in to it, and that makes player's interest the only guiding factor.

TMC walks the edge, since it gives both perspectives on uncompromised and compromised control through narrative and gameplay. This is a finished game, hence the control of gameplay and storyline are inherently compromised and set in stone. Yet both gameplay and storyline create an illusion of something developing right before your eyes. This is a bogus statement, since this can be said about any game, but the choice of subject make it apparent here.

What TMC makes crystal clear, is that control is given through frameworks. An all-encompassing framework is the story: it has to tie everything neatly. Control within it can be emulated, say in RPGs for example through branching storylines, but not given directly. TMC toys with this emulation technique through choices you can make after E4 conference goes awry. Then it outright mocks the notion of giving away control when the Starfather gives it over to the fans. All the while the player is stuck in a glorified cutscene, challenged with a narrative puzzle.

A secondary framework is the gameplay. Only here the control can be directly granted through different systems. In TMC it's tied to the story by your role in it, by your skillset and by how it impacts your environment, essentially creating your own story within a bigger one, since you create your own path through it. This also can be said about any game, to a greater or lesser extent, but again, subject matter makes it apparent. This clarity TMC brings to dilemmas of videogame creation is invaluable.

3. Thinking outside the box without filling it first.
TMC toys, plays, satirizes videogames by building itself upon one incredibly obvious presumption about the player: they've played games before. Their box is filled with WASD to move, with repetitive story beats, with writing pitfalls and cop-outs that pad the playtime or try to envelop different gameplay ideas into a singular narrative. And the fact that it's spelled out here in a semi-intrusive way only reinforces this message of necessary stagnation and understood lack of innovation.
This presumption elevates the gameplay to be both narratively driven and to give the player feeling of thinking outside the box, when in actuality they're still within the narrative framework.

4. Circle is the cycle.
TMC refers to the circle as a universe of its own. A fictional world, within which its maker is free to create what they imagine, bound only by the radius they set themselves. Circle is both a wonderful satire on the compromise-ridden vertical slice, as well as a metaphor for a multitude of things.
One would be a cycle of entertainment artists in the workforce. TMC underlines this point throughout by taking the player on a journey from a playtester to the developer. Through "life"— an emergent force of developers' efforts — and the narrative one becomes possesed by the medium, with an immesurable desire to create. Fans become the new creators, striving to outshine their teachers. This is so universal and delivered in such an obvious way it hurts.
It hurts almost as much as, again underlined in TMC, the realization of just how much effort it takes to create a game. Which circles back to control — as in interactivity, a defining feature of the medium. One that makes you high on the premise that you're actually doing something of value to the game's world.
And even if this notion feels faux, it really isn't, as again explored in TMC through the phenomenon of streaming. It brings value to the act of consumption of media, not analytical nor QA-concerned, which by itself creates a new type of entertainment. Circling back to generating new entertainment artists. And making me talk in circles.

5. The Baby
Developers are families, games are their babies. Inseminated by ideas, eggs of videogame engines make a gamebaby, which are nurtured and guided by their parents from the inception till college age, ready to take on the world. As with an actual child, shielding it from the broader world, the public, for too long will only stifle its development.
Other side of the coin — releasing it too early into the wild — has been mocked to death in TMC and its ending, but most notably in the lovely "Frag and Brag" fable.



I'm stuck between two mirrors set up by TMC. It made me look between its lines, where the game itself is an exercise in looking between them.

Отличная игра , коротенькая , но увлекательная и в тоже время в игре есть чем заняться , на пару вечерков хватит + музычка хороша :D

Wow, It goes from a low budget game to whatever you make of it. Levels have amazing depth and story; And unexpected twists. Worth the money, High replay value!

AMAZING GAME, very creative, breaks all the boundaries! You bite into the game and you find more game!

it's really short and feels rushed, the idea of "making your own game" is interesting and changing NPCs around to do different things is okay but, it feels unfinished, like there was supposed to be more to the game. the story is handled well but I just didn't really find it interesting to listen to the story of a game in development limbo. It doesn't give you the freedom it suggests it does and it very straight and linear, feels like the story in the game is the story OF this game so...pass.

You could be playing as a hacker os as a rogue A.I. in a game that's in development for years. Since the developers can't finish it, you will have to - by hacking and glitching.
It's pretty original and interesting, but I got he feeling that its unique features weren't as well explored as they could be - except for the ending. It was awesome.
For those that want something different.

Pros

• Original gameplay
  
• Voice acting
  
• 4th wall breaking. HARD
  
• Multiple solutions to the same problem. Outside of box thinking

♥♥♥♥

• Not a lot of music
  
• Ugly textures, colors (when they appear) and game world. Although that's kind of the point (since you're playing an unfinished game) it's still ugly.
  
• A bit dull after a while

The Magic Circle is a game built in response for some of the issues the indie game scene is facing today. The game tells a story of a game development team stuck in limbo, constantly revising their project and its mechanics. It's easy to see this as an allegory made for creators, especially ones filled with self doubt about their art. The game itself is narrative driven with light puzzles that involve editing the world and its inhabitants. The most difficult part of the game is trying to figure out where you're supposed to go next.

Please don't go into this game expecting a wide explorable world. Play it for an impacting story that features a strong voice cast and a whole bunch of emotions.

This is something different and unique: a game that is about a game, knows that it is a game and what a game is.

It shows the start off the product as an obsessive ideas, concepts, redesigns, personal problems, presentations and even elements of modern gaming culture, but it also has a deep desire.

Amazing work by guys who brought us the look inside the development of games and being successful at keeping it always fresh and interesting. Also, way to go to getting Stephen Russell to do the voice.

Oh and there is also truth in it that, however blasphemous it may sound, there is a thin line between an artist and a God.

Recommended!

The plot in The Magic Circle takes an interesting turn. You are literally playing a game while playing a game, being the hero while being the player whose the hero. Yeah, its one of those things that's cool but if you think too deeply about it you get a headache. Like time travel.

But I could kiss the writers of this game, the plot and deeper meanings are just so ingenuous! When you get far enough into the game you'll see what I mean. But as a gamer and writer myself who has many years of both things under my belt, the deeper meanings meant a lot to me. Once again, I'm going to keep this semi-spoiler free. So I can't say much more.

Full review here- http://www.keengamer.com/article/13118_the-magic-circle-review

Part 1 of let's play here-

Всем привет! Сразу предупреждаю, текста много будет!


Вот решил купить данную игру, а именно "The Magic Circle".
Обзоры с чего там начинаются? С предыстории? С описания игры?
Да ладно вам, можно прочитать это в разделе "Об этой игре"
Прочитали?
Заинтересовало, да? А кому не охота побывать разработчиком хоть немного?
Конечно, вам не дадут создать свою игру полностью от и до, но...и этого будет достаточно!
Вот, например, встретите вы первого врага. Его нужно будет убить. Но нет. Не всё так просто...
Этого врага ты захватываешь и тут понеслось!
Сделать его врагом, атакующим всё подряд? Запросто!
Или союзником? Питомец в дороге ещё никому не помешал.
Так и это ещё не всё! По ходу прохождения ты встречаешь новых врагов и собираешь их способности, модели поведения и всё такое.
И берёшь создаёшь себе питомца...да там питомец будет покруче тебя самого))
Был обычный чудик, атакующий в ближнем бою, а в конце создал летающего чудика с молниеотводом, невосприимчивым к огню, стреляющим лазером...
Думаю, про это хватит.


Что же насчёт сюжета? Знаете игру "The Stanley Parable"? Помните голос из-за кадра?
В "The Magic Circle" тоже он есть.
Да там их несколько. Это же разработчики.
Вообщем, ты должен решить, что же будет с игрой дальше.
Сам же гг(главный герой) не имеет никаких атакующих способностей. Можно использовать инструменты разработчиков.
Вот от них то и самое веселье!
Но хочется сказать, что кроме всего этого веселья, ты поймёшь, из речей разработчиков(богов, потом поймёте), как же сложен процесс создания игр. Да и к тому же ты сможешь и сам...


Ты до сих пор читаешь?
Да купи ты её! Рекомендую!

This was a strange little game about games. Fun to play wihle it lasted but a bit short. Endingg left something to be desired though

Play this if you have an interest in how video games are made. Try the demo first.

I was certainly a little worried about this little puzzler of a game in the beginning, but it goes places. Despite initial appearances it is a tightly and carefully built. While there is absolutely some replay value in it, that's not how I roll, and I would say that my playtime is indicative of the time a single play-through takes, so measure up the value of the game to you with respect to that.

The Magic Circle is set in the world of an unfinished fantasy themed video game, and you are a play tester, trying to help get the game released, while its key developers argue about its content.

The main gameplay mechanic is the ability to trap objects and creatures, and then edit their properties. You don't have a weapon, so combat relies on editing creatures so they view you as a friend, and other creatures as an enemy.

You can also remove abilities from creatures and objects, and add them to others. This will let you change how the creatures move (walking, flying, not at all) and how they attack (melee, flamethrower, railgun, no weapon). This system lets you come up with some creative solutions to both combat, and environmental puzzles. Its the kind of game where different players will come up with different solutions to problems.

For example, one enemy, the flamer, is basically just a big round rock which breathes fire. I found an inanimate rock which was fireproof, so I removed "fireproof" from the rock, and added it to my weird looking dog ally, so it could kill those flamers without fear of death. Then I made the flamers my allies and resurrected them, to help me fight a boss.

In one area I needed to get across a lava stream, and I'd seen this turtle like creature nearby, which was big enough for me to stand on. I made it fireproof, and then made it think that rocks were its enemy, so it would go attack a rock on the other side of the lava, carrying me across.

The story has some fun moments, parodying game development and fan culture, ranging from subjects like players who just want to skip all the story, the rise in popularity of early access games that are missing large chunks of content, and the media driven E3 style events. The voice acting is fantastic.

Unfortunately the game is really short. I finished it in exactly 3 hours (my research before I bought it suggested it would be 3 to 5 hours and usually I'm on the upper end of the scale). Its a shame, because I was just starting to really enjoy it, and then it was over. My least favourite part is the section that's set in a retro sci-fi level with ugly pixellated graphics. Again, this is a parody, but it didn't change the fact that trying to understand the level layout and identify enemies literally hurt my eyes (it looks worse than 1993 Doom).

The Magic Circle is a fun little game that has some really good ideas, but due to its length I would say buy it on a deep discount sale. I bought it for 50% off, which is the maximum anyone should pay.

"Однажды государственная комиссия заказала [древнегреческому скульптору Поликлету] статую и все время давала советы, что и как должно быть в ней изображено. Поликлет стал делать одновременно две статуи: одну он никому не показывал и делал по своему усмотрению, другую держал на виду и покорно вносил в нее все требуемые поправки. Когда настал срок, он представил комиссии обе статуи на выбор. Комиссия сказала: «Первая статуя прекрасна, а вторая ужасна!» — «Так знайте же, — ответил Поликлет, — первую сделал я, а вторую сделали вы»."
М.Л. Гаспаров, Занимательная Греция.


Мы играем за тестера, которого нанимает игровая студия, безуспешно пытающаяся закончить работу над продолжением хита двадцатилетней давности. Студия в основном состоит из 3 человек - старый разработчик первого хита Иш, который ревностно оберегает свое творческое видение и ставит сюжет настолько выше геймплея, что, например, полностью вырезает из игры боевую систему только лишь затем, чтобы игроки не могли попытаться убить дружественных NPC (а тех, кто хочет такой возможности, презирает). Мейз, пришедшая в геймдев из про-гейминга манчкинша, полная противоположность Иша, которая считает, что сюжет в играх для галочки, а внимания достойна только боевка. Она собирает коллекцию из воплей побежденных ею в онлайне игроков, любовно называя ее Хором Проклятых, и мечтает уволиться, но не может по бюрократическим причинам. И наконец Кода - фанатка первой части, боготворившая Иша раньше, но разочарованная в его нынешних решениях. Она ценит в игре атмосферность и правдободобность, предлагая, к примеру, добавить NPC действия вроде сна (на что Мейз цинично заявляет: "просто заставь их бесконечно ходить туда-сюда и все"), но больше всего желает, чтобы вторая часть повторяла первую, насколько это возможно. Вместе они тянут разработку в разные стороны, и в итоге у них раз за разом, билд за билдом, ничего не выходит.


Возможно, из этого описания вы сделаете вывод, что это очередной The Stanley Parable, симулятор ходьбы со сломанной четвертой стеной и потоком саркастичных комментариев о природе геймеров от разработчиков. И окажетесь правы - на первые 10 минут. Все меняется, когда с вами напрямую связывается _сама игра_ (вернее, ИИ одного из заброшенных билдов, который обрел самосознание) и просит вас прекратить этот фарс - заставить студию каким-то чудом закончить разработку и отправить игру на золото. Она дает нам возможность менять саму себя изнутри наподобие Pony Island, выискивая уязвимости, восстанавливая удаленные объекты и меняя свойства NPC. И тут можно по-настоящему проявить креативность - хотите создать армию летающих камней, следующих за вами и дышащих огнем на врагов? Пожалуйста. Хотите зомби с лазерной пушкой, лечащего союзников? Вот он. Или, может, робота, заражающего врагов паразитами?.. ну, вы поняли. Задачи в игре, хоть и немногочисленны, решаются уймой способов, а конец, хоть и наступает быстро, одновременно и заставляет задуматься, всегда ли мы поступаем правильно, предъявляя претензии к геймдевам ИРЛ, и открывает новый режим игры, который, честно говоря, оказался очень приятным сюрпризом. Не могу говорить конкретно, ибо спойлеры, но не всякая студия тратила бы время на такое, когда можно было бы обойтись и катсценой.


Я оцениваю эту игру на 9/10 - один балл снят только лишь за то, что игра кончается слишком быстро. Столь необычные игры выходят непростительно редко, и стоило бы растянуть удовольствие хотя бы вдвое... хотя кто я такой, чтобы оспаривать видение разработчиков?

While the "gods" are too busy bickering and fighting each other to finish making the world, you're left to reshape parts of the world as you see fit. And with a little help from an abandoned "villain", you might just have the chance to make your own world.

This game is not your usual game, take the role of what the devs believe is a 'bug' inside their game, and bring them down from the inside. With the power of the gods (or 'sky bastards') bestowed upon you by the very soul of the video game, you gain the power to mix and match your friends and enemies are CREATE the solution to the puzzles. Your goal with your new found abilities? Launch the game, from the inside.

Топчик! Брать, играть, обозревать!
Это как раз тот случай, когда все друзья скупают разпиаренный шлак, а этой игры ни у кого нет. Да у меня и самого руки не сразу дошли до нее, каюсь и жалею.

Я боюсь сказать что-то лишнее, поскольку будут сплошняком спойлеры.
Игра представляет из себя изображение игры-долгостроя.
Вы почувствуете себя если не богом, то хотя бы настоящим волшебником, который созидает, хоть и назло другим. И вот когда ты уже прошарил все фишки, хочется дальше лазать по билдам и воротить свою уличную магию, сюжет круто поворачивает и открывает на голову больше возможностей!

В качестве симулятора геймдева сойдет.

The Magic Circle is pretty decent for a glorified walking simulator. There is some combat in the form of sending your pokemon to do battle for you, and puzzle solving, but for the most part The Magic Circle is about walking around and listening to the characters talk, i.e. the story.

Is the story any good then? I suppose. The idea of The Magic Circle, playing a game that was unfinished, is unique and pretentious. The characters are exaggerated and pretentious as well, but not too much. At times I was annoyed by them, and other times I appreciated the commentary the game was making. Overall the story intrigued me enough to finish the game, which only took a few hours. I say The Magic Circle is worth playing through, but I wouldn't recommend paying 20 eurobucks for it. Wait for a sale.

The central discussion in The Magic Circle isn't something I think fit for a Steam review, nor myself exactly capable of it. Even after playing it, it sticks out as a game that does not want to succeed as such: it functions best as a metanarrative on the experience of play, and the responsibilities and capacities of creators and consumers in the modern space. That's probably a suicidal shtick, but if you enjoy narrative-experiential walking simulators such as The Beginner's Guide and vacuously unfunny alternative universe Crows, Crows, Crows titles, (Dr. Langeskov...) maybe it'll do something for you. It's advertising itself as a 'darkly comedic story,' but I disagree: I smirked a few times, and that's about it.

The game seems to lose sight of its narrative ambitions at times, lost amongst some less-than-ideal play systems. Mostly trial and error puzzles, of which there are few, a functional collectathon that rewards world building texts and audio logs (which interrupt your adventuring in order to be played), and shallow power acquisition. But that's the point, the game insists: you're walking around an incomplete indie-funded mess, a receptacle of consumer's hopes and designer's difficulties. And against this I rattle that neither parody nor self-awareness preserve a game's systems, and by the end of the relatively brief adventure (~2-3 hours), The Circle has a response for me: I'm entitled in this perspective. Yeah, well, maybe I am.

I was sufficiently enraptured by the story to see it through to the end. I think the game's division of achievements behind sub-par game systems (such as waiting for audiologs, and collectathonning in a bland world), as well as playthrough-exclusive achievements amidst a twist-dependant narrative, is stupid: but my criticisms of its systems melt away with claims of intentionality. I'll say, if nothing else, it's worth experiencing for the thoughts it provokes towards the end: the cans of which should've been opened a few hours earlier, and with greater consideration of the idea than an extended monologue.

It took me waaaay too long to play this game. I picked up The Magic Circle back in 2016 and I just finished it for the first time. I think part of the reason for that is that the early game is very slow and leaves you directionless. It's up to you to get motivated and do the hard work, but once you do you're in for a ride.

In The Magic Circle, you take the role of a playtester in a demo build of a long-anticipated game. Before long, you break the script and are free to explore the world with a weird mixture of god powers and developer powers. Along the way, you'll uncover truths about the game's development and the developers themselves.

The voice acting from the developers really sells it. The leader writer is voiced by Rusty Venture, which is doubly funny because he acts the same as Rusty and his avatar looks like a mixture between Rusty Venture and the Postal Dude. The other developers are fun too and really shine in some of their optional dialouge snippets.

Here's where things get weird though. At the outset, your goal is to find and "hack" one of the developers floating around. To do that, you explore an overworld, solve puzzles, have your hacked minions complete combat encounters, and collect traits from those minions that will help you solve puzzles. Hacking minions is cool because you can mix and match TRAITS from any other creature you find in the world. Along the way, you are highly, highly encouraged to find all the extra audiologs and developer notes left around the world.

That's because The Magic Circle is effectively two games. The overworld hacking/puzzling portion makes up about 3 hours. The final hour or two is something so incredible and interesting it needs to be seen to be believed. I was utterly blown away by the reveal at the end and could have spent far more time exploring the last parts of gameplay.

That said, the finale is fundamentally different than the overworld exploration and your enjoyment of that last section will largely depend on how many easter eggs and hidden objects you found in the earlier sections. The problem then is that the hacking portion feels very underdeveloped and not as big as it could be while the end game is well-developed, but would be fun to expand upon and spend more time with. It's sort of a paradox.

Regardless, I highly recommend The Magic Circle to anyone with even a passing interest in games development or games design. This is a story that will make you appreciate all the hard work that goes into a video game, even a bad game.

The Magic Circle wants to be a game about making games. As one of those artsy meta-games, in the game it is a “game within a game”, wherein you are a playtester for a gaming company whose game, the Magic Circle, has been in development hell for the last 20 years. You are quickly introduced to the four main characters. Ish, the pretentious game developer who seems to be riffing on a number of haughty, pretentious game designers. Coda, a fangirl new to the company who has joined the team and is responsible for creating a demo but who is deeply angry about Ish’s failure to deliver a game for so long, and extremely possessive of the game world. Haze, a pro gamer who joined the team ten years ago to try and help Ish understand gamers. And Pro, an AI trapped inside the world, the PC of the previous version of the game which was trashed ten years ago when they started over from scratch.

This game is really driven by story, but it suffers from the flaw of everyone being kind of a jerk. The “good guys” are Pro and Haze, and they’re trying to destroy the company around them. It just goes downhill from there. This makes it hard to really like any of them; they’re kind of fun to watch for a bit, but after a while, it just becomes horror heaped upon horror. Moreover, the actual character arcs are fairly limited, and unfortunately, it felt a bit inconsistent at times.

The actual gameplay isn’t very good either; in fact, I’d classify it as outright bad. While some of this is intentional meta-badness, it is genuinely not a fun game to play. The gameplay consists of pretty obvious, basic actions. It is definitely not a twitch-based game, and is really centered around solving puzzles with the tools you have.

The core of the gameplay – in fact, the ONLY gameplay in the game – is shooting a little magic circle under an enemy. You have tons of time to do this, so this isn’t really hard. Once they’re trapped in your circle, you can strip off all the abilities from the enemy or even make it into your friend so it will attack other enemies for you.

This sounds neat, but it is literally the only gameplay mechanic there is. There are a few enemies later on in the game which your dudes cannot attack easily, and which require you to kill them by getting a tractor beam ability to pull them down to be attacked, or to get the railgun ability to shoot them from range. Then, you just do the same thing.

These three things – plus the ability to ride around on the back of a fireproof turtle – solve every puzzle in the game.

The result, then, is that the gameplay mostly consists of wandering around the game world searching for collectables; you can complete the entire game in under two hours if you’re just trying to beat it, and frankly, the collectibles don’t really add all that much. The puzzles are mostly just “find ability and use it to solve the puzzle”; none of the solutions are ever particularly clever, and almost all of them basically have one or two “pieces” to them.

The gameplay is just too straightforward, without anything really to mix things up until the end of the game where you create a little mini-dungeon to send the AI through – which is really very basic and not all that fun to create.

As there is no intensity in the actual gameplay itself, and the game world is deliberately drab and ugly (and very monotonous looking after a while), there’s just not much to love here. The story is only okay, it ends up coming off as a bit too caught up in how clever it thinks it is, and the gameplay itself is pretty poor.

All in all, I can’t really recommend this. It had some vaguely interesting ideas, but ultimately, not much was done with them, and the moment-to-moment gameplay of the game is just not very engaging.

Замечательное приключение :)

I'd be tempted to recomend this to almost anyone that enjoys video games. A great experience that doesn't outstay its welcome and always moves fast enough to be interesting. Definitely some unique mechanics here.

Pros:

+ The Pseudo-Hacking gameplay is lots of fun!
+ You can really get creative with the interactable stuff
+ Improvisation and experimentation are encouraged and fun to do
+ Story is pretty good and is interesting enough to see to the end
+ Voice Acting is surprisingly pretty believable and pretty good overall, minus Coda who gets a little silly at times
+ Lots of stuff to find!


♥♥♥♥:

- Very brief experience
- Not enough puzzles centered around the hacking gameplay for my liking since it basically feels like you're just knicking abilities in order
- Despite seeming non-linear, its very linear with a somewhat specific order to get abilities
- Postgame REALLY falls apart
- Some more color and striking visuals would have been nice. I get its trying to serve the story, but it does have strokes of briliance with its style but keeps mostly to whites

7/10. Pretty good, but maybe get it when its on sale

I didn’t know what to expect from this game and I was definitely sceptic within first few minutes. But it turned out to be a very different and enjoyable experience. The game is basically a walking simulator that throws you into an unfinished game. The developers want to you to test out the game but there you find some kind of ‘spirit’ that wants you to do something else. You then proceed to explore the world and find solutions to the problems by reprograming creatures. What is interesting is that there are many different ways of completing the game and everybody will have a different experience. So if this puzzle/walking simulator genre is something you enjoy, you should definitely try this game.

The 5 stages you go through when playing this game:
1) What a novel concept! I'm inside a game restoring and finishing it!
2) Okay, it's getting repetitive and there's not much to restore here.
3) What a pretentious piece of garbage.
4) I had to sit through E4 and now you're making me design a game level? Oh, screw you.
5) Credits! Finally!

Maybe my hopes were just too high here.

I saw these guys at PAX 2014. I sat at their booth playing the game until I was (nicely) asked to vacate so someone else could play. The game is a remarkable concept and impeccably designed. The art is incredible. I can't give enough praise :D

as of writing i just finished my first playthrough of this game
the music the freedom and the story is more than great
im yet to 100% the game but im sure that one of those turtles with fight can do the job all i must say this gave me more inspiration on learning how to make games
also will probably add this to my review vid if i ever make one

Clever without being overbearing or pretentious. Story-rich without becoming a "walking simulator".

The writing, voice acting and design are excellent, and the puzzles are logical and rewarding.

An engrossing, unique experience, offering an interesting insight into game design. Highly recommended.

SINTESI DEL GAMEPLAY

TMC è un'avventura in prima persona estremamente originale. L'originalità si fonda sul fatto di poter assimilare e modificare i parametri dei bot che incontrerete al fine di poterne sfruttare le caratteristiche. Ha dunque un gameplay emergente che premia l'esplorazione che in sostanza è in free roaming. Esplorare ci permette di incontrare sempre nuovi bot da poter intrappolare al fine di arricchirci di possibilità creative utili a risolvere i vari puzzle e gli assurdi nemici che incontreremo.

ESTRO ARTISTICO

Il gioco è una psichedelica e psicotica meta-narrazione. Il level design "Low Fi" è un immenso stereotipo videoludico che ironicamente mischia la fantascienza al fantasy. Nonostante i toni siano altamente demenziali e grotteschi, il gioco ha una forte vena esistenzialista. In un certo senso tutte le sue assurde atmosfere e i suoi barocchi discorsi filosofici riescono a farci soffrire, come se fossero espressione reale di una regia perversa e malata. La qualità recitativa dei doppiatori è molto elevata e la loro espressività riesce perfettamente a rendersi complice delle assurde suggestioni che il gioco trasmette. Anche il comparto sonoro non è da meno: le musiche si fondono perfettamente ♥♥♥ i toni misteriosi e acromatici.

PRO

Avventura dal game design molto originale e "psichedelicamente" molto esistenziale. Grandi suggestioni visive e sonore. Molta ironia e umorismo. Gameplay emergente molto divertente.

CONTRO

Molto corto. Puzzle estremamente semplici. L'originale game design poteva essere sfruttato per una complessità molto maggiore.

Somewhat clever writing and novel premise, and a few unexpected surprises here and there. The "hacking" mechanics are pretty interesting, allowing puzzles requiring a bit of thinking, but you encounter them in low density (about 3 or 4 I found clever in almost four hours of play). The game opens up after a while leaving you to search for clues and tools in a semi-open manner, and there are quite a few optional discoveries which encourage exploration.

Unfortunately the overall feeling I got from the game was one of tediousness: drab environments (they serve the story but are still drab), slow movement speed which combined with the open areas gets grating, confusing map that doesn't reflect the game world geometry very well, very clunky interface (played with gamepad), and the blob of pets that end up following you around can get really obnoxious by blocking your view and annoying sound effects. Said pets also have to be tweaked individually, which makes trying different strategies really annoying. With no possibility to save without overwriting your previous save, there's also real fear of getting stuck due to some bug or design oversight, which gets in the way of freely experimenting with the creature abilities you collect.

The game tries to weave personal drama like infertility together with the story of the failed development of the game, and although I haven't pieced together the whole story, I found poorly done and out of place within the overall humorous tone.

Overall worth a shot for the novelty, but I wouldn't exactly call this quality entertainment.

Tried to fix a video game.

Instead I destroyed everyone's hopes and dreams.

Too close to reality, game. Too close.

I prefer a non spoiler review. It's a short game but you won't worry about that so much. This starts as a story driven game, which is good. Then the mechanics kick in and really draw you into the world. The idea is you are a play tester that is finishing the game thats been in dev for 20 years. . .

The favourite is the mechanics. An enemy approaches, and you capture them in your trap. Then rip out all their code (walking, hostile, teeth). Leaving a harmless little jellybean.

Then the idea is to reprogram enemies with collected attributes from other enemies. I approached the game as the sort with hundreds of attributes at the ready, so each scenario was tactically handled. There are some attribites that are difficult to consume at first due to your resources not being varied enough and your enemies being too powerful. But you eventually end up getting them. The challenge to do so was highly satisfying.

By the end I was standing on the back of a flying turtle and flying around the map with my swarm of flying machine guns. Click to direct. Done. I won't lie. I smirked a bit.

Fun game. Would reccomend.

The Magic Circle is an excellent game. A mix of "outside-the-box" combat (you cannot fight, but your minions can), and clever puzzles. It is a solid 7 hours of play, if you do not get stuck or use the google to get by.

There was a only one scenario where I was blocked due to understanding the intent of the puzzle, but not its limitations. Basically the effect I needed to exploit worked in two dimensions, rather than three dimensions. Other than that, all of the puzzles were definitely within my grasp, including the final one that is perhaps the hardest to wrap your head around... how to get to the sky bastards and finish the fight.

I'll be honest that I expected the game to last a little longer. But I was genuinely suprised by the real final section of the game, which some will call bizarre filler, but I call a blast to play around with.

I also wish the final cutscene had a little more to it, so the wrapping up of the(intentionally) long-winded story had more to it, but damn did the whole package satisfy.

Overall, I give it an 8.8/10. If you compare it in a vacuum to only Indies like itself, it is probably far higher. But I am left wishing there had been a little more, even if that "little more" was more "enemy" types and a few extra "levels" (the quotes will make more sense if you've played it).

A truly original and "meta" gaming experience from beginning to end.
The designers made a lot of convenient decisions that keep it fun and fast paced; you never have to waste time grinding or backtracking if you make use of the map features, and there are a ton of different ways to solve problems.

I won't go into the details because it would spoil some of the coolest surprises, but I'll say this much; it'll make you think about game design from the inside out. It's a bit short, but never gets boring.

I should also mention that the voice acting is top notch and entertaining. You'll probably recognize at least one of the voices.

LOVE this game! It's short, yes, but I find it very innovative compared to other games I've played. Taking the role of an entity "inside" a game and rewriting other entities and cut-copy-pasting abilities from one to another... creativity is definitely encouraged here! The story is compelling and delightfully satirical. Play the demo, then buy the game!

I didn't see any indication of this on the store page, so I do want to warn everyone that there are a few instances of some pretty strong language in this game. Don't buy it for your kids (most of the humor would go over their heads anyway).

The term "Magic Circle" is game designer lingo for a player's immersion in the game. It's analagous to the "Fourth Wall" in drama. Anything that makes the player conscious of the fact he is merely playing a game is said to break the magic circle.

This game doesn't just break the magic circle; it body slams it, stomps on it, and makes vicious insinuations about the age of its mother's profession. In so doing, however, the game actually forges an even stronger magic circle around the player. When you are playing a game about playing a game, it becomes difficult for your brain to process the fact that The Old Pro isn't real, but rather a fictional character brought to life with a typically awesome voice performance from Garr—I mean Mercer—I mean Stephen Russell. Artsy self-absorbed writers, frustrated level designers, impatient competitive gamers, *even* OMGOMGOMG!!!!!! breathless fans, everyone feels the keen edge of The Magic Circle's wit.

It's not a long game. I spent a lot of time just fooling around and still reached the real end credits in less than 9 hours. Even if I weren't going to fool around in my current game for a few more hours and then replay it all from the start (I couldn't hear some of the dialogue over the sound of my own giggling), I would still consider it worth the price.

Anyway, I hope you like it. I worked really hard to get it ready to ship.

Un jeu à propos des jeux, où tu hack le jeu, où tu détruis le jeu et où tu te demande c'est quoi un jeu. C'est comme entrer dans les coulisses d'un studio dysfonctionnel, où l'équipe se chicanne tout le temps et où le projet a mis 10 ans à sortir. Bref c'est très cool.

Heartfelt, full of dark comedy as well as some thought provoking moments, this is one of those rare games you kinda wish was longer, or would get a sequel...but the more you think about it, the more you realize it's perfect the way it is.

I think it's important to start out by saying that this game is an experience and that is the reason you play it more than the gameplay. The experience I got from this game is an impressive and lasting one that hits far too close to home as someone entering the game industry. The trick is, you need to play it fully to the end to get that experience. Luckily at 5 - 6 hours, the investment for that is not very large.

The gameplay and world and etc in the game isn't bad and is legitimately entertaining for awhile. It even felt pretty clever at times, But I feel like after you really start to understand the game mechanics and how to play the game that the new wrinkles and clever things you can do just do not happen often enough for a player learning the game and exploring blind. Basically I think the pacing is a touch slow.

But the focus, once more, is on the experence. The gameplay is a vessel meant to deliver that experience to you. Like a walking simulator game delivering a narrative, but with a bit more gameplay. And for me at least, it's one I will carry with me for a very long time because of just how well executed that experience was.

So if you see this, and you know a good bit about gaming and maybe a little about game design, I'd say you should pick it up and play it through one day. I'd reccomend picking it up on sale, but if I had paid $20 for it I would not have felt ripped off. Sometimes impact > gameplay hours.

The author is dead and we have killed him. Game good please play.

This is an amazing game, play it start to finish without spoilers for greatest effect.

Mit 4 Stunden ein wenig kurz. Nun als Spieler spielt man die meiste Zeit ein unfertiges Spiel mit Adminrechten, man kann also ganz einfach die Regeln ändern. Das Spieldesign geht in die "There is no Game" in Ego-perspektive.

Spielerisch haben wir eine Mischung aus Overlord und Impossible Creatures falls von euch jemand schonmal von diesen Spielen gehört hat. Wer die Spiele kennt weiß, dass man hier mal was kreatives und anderes spielt als der Einheitsbrei.

Storytechnisch zeigt das Spiel ziemlich deutlich welche Probleme Spieleentwicklung mit sich bringt, besonders wenn man bereits einen Erfolg erzielt hat. Interessant auch, dass mehr Leute nicht immer bedeutet, dass alles besser läuft. Es wird von persönlichen Problemen, fallen gelassene Versionen und generelle Unstimmigkeiten erzählt. Die den Spieler beeindruckend zeigen warum das Spiel mit so großen Ambitionen selbst nach 20 Jahren nie fertig wurde.

Positive Bewertung, weil ich mit dem Spiel spaß hatte und aus der Neuzeit nichts vergleichbares kenne. Für nen knappen 3er kann man mitnehmen.

Absolutely frigging amazing. This game managed to combine some of the most de-constructionist gameplay I've ever seen with Network-level commentary about the game industry itself, and yet it does it in a package that's incredibly fun to play around with AND with far less pretention than just about any other self-important Game About Gaming I've ever seen. This deserves GOTY awards from any game journo who still has a few shreds of their soul left.

There might be longer games out there for $20, but it's virtually assured none of them have even a fraction of the creativity and raw love of the genre -despite all its flaws- that The Magic Circle demonstrates.

The Magic Circle es uno de esos juegos que cuando alguien te pregunta ¿de qué va? te quedas mirando paticueto al que te ha formulado la cuestión. A lo que más se acerca posiblemente es a un walking sim, pero también incorpora algunos combates de forma muy imaginativa, ligeros puzzles y sobre todo mucha inventiva. Es una experiencia distinta: para bien o para mal es difícil que hayas jugado a algo similar.

La clave de este juego dentro del juego es el hackeo: pero no pienses en códigos enrevesados, más bien en ir sustrayendo y añadiendo características clave de las criaturas ♥♥♥ las que te vas cruzando para poder proseguir. Y la forma de tirar adelante es muy imaginativa, de forma que el avance se puede realizar de muchas formas distintas para alcanzar el mismo objetivo, explorando un mundo no muy grande pero sí muy libre, mientras se te va planteando la historia de cómo se ha gestado este juego y los intereses ocultos detrás de él.

La recta final es como mínimo desconcertante y extraña, y después de "terminar" el juego podrás quedarte todavía creando en ¿modo dios? O lo que vendría ser el programador jefe, vamos.

Una comedia enrevesada sobre los entresijos de la industria, las expectativas de los fans frente a las desarrolladoras y las aspiraciones últimas de los creadores. No es un cambiavidas, pero sí algo diferente y ante todo, inesperado.

I was extremely let down with this "game" for a slew of reasons, but I will only hit the main points.

1) It was barely a game at all, it was much more of a Narrative style like "The Stanley Parable". The game took maybe five hours to beat, half of which was not what I would call gaming. The first time I actually thought "I'm having the slightest bit of fun" was for about half an hour at the end when you design the levels.

2) It felt like someone wanted to tell a story and chose the wrong medium Instead of writing a book, they created an interactive video and called it a game. I don't have too much of a problem with that genre, but it should be made known (and I should have researched this game more beforehand).

3) The story was as lame as the game-play. I didn't care for any of the characters, and I wish they would have just gone away and let me play in my world. Also, the game play is almost entirely basic. You hack a creature and modify its abilities...but there are so few options that it is basically always the same. And since you can have all of them follow you, the abilities are never strategically limited. You never have to decide between abilities when you have them all. Not to mention, upgrading the monsters is unnecessary, so that's a waste of a feature. Take strategy out of the tags for this game.

4) They could have done a lot more with the game. I feel like it is missing something, and that they could have flushed it out to make it worth the $20 price tag.

Are there any Pros?

1) I liked the art style, environment, and atmosphere, though I wish you could have brought more of the dull landscape to life/color (like you do to some objects / creatures.

2) The game played smoothly and was intuitive.

3) While I didn't love the story, but I have to give them credit for originality. It was a cool enough concept to hook me into buying the game.


So why wouldn't I recommend this? I didn't have fun, plain and simple. Mostly because it's not much of a game for the price. Was it the worst game I've played? Definitely not. I think if you go into it expecting a story and your job is literally nothing but turning the page, and you got it on sale for $5, you might be able to enjoy this. But that is not how a game should be.

Highly, highly recommend this game! The narration is fantastic (courtesy of Belethor from Skyrim). I haven't laughed this hard playing a game in a long time, it's gameplay is extremely clever and unique in my opinion, makes you think but doesn't make you feel stupid afterward. Its one of those games I know I'll be sad when I finish because there won't be anymore story to play. Definitely give this one a shot, you won't regret it.

Very interesting game about game making. If you are involved or at least interested at game development procedure, you will see some references to the works and people inside the game business. This plot is surroundered with a interesting gameplay, almost like a Portal-esque mechanics. And this means you can use your imagination to solve the puzzles. You should finish the game at least once.

Original like most good indie games. As you move along you change the environment in several ways while being led on by an entity, voice acted by Stephen Russell (Nick Valentine, Codsworth, etc.). Manipulating the creatures was more fun than I had thought, I could create a little army of mushrooms if I wanted to. Give this one a try if your in the mood for something different.

A game within a game, hacking enemies instead of fighting them, really enjoyable

Original. Relevant. Inspiring.

The magic circle è un gioco davvero molto particolare ed interessante. Per me è stata una sorpresa assolutamente gradita.
In the magic circle dovrete portare a termine la programmazione di un gioco lasciato incompleto dagli sviluppatori. La particolarità di questo gioco è il gameplay composto dalla risoluzione di alcuni enigmi tramite la modifica delle caratteristiche degli abitanti di questo gioco. Infatti, avrete la possibilità di ridistribuire i poteri dei nemici a vostro piacimento. Interessanti lo stile narrativo e la trama che non mancherà di dialoghi molto umoristici. La grafica non è eccezionale, contribuisce a rendere tutto molto sopra le righe ma si poteva fare di meglio!
Consiglio questo gioco a chiunque è interessato a provare esperienze nuove e particolari senza grandi pretese grafiche.

The Magic Circle, en accès anticipé, n'a pas encore de sous-titres francophones mais ne vous inquiétez pas, ça devrait arriver bientôt selon les devs. En attendant, si vous comprenez l'anglais et que vous aimez les jeux à la Stanley Parable, je vous invite à tester celui-ci : il vaut largement la petite vingtaine d'euros que vous pourriez y investir.

L'histoire est surprenante et vous prendez beaucoup de plaisir à explorer ce jeu et à modeler son univers car oui, vous vous retrouvez directement dans la peau d'un playtesteur qui tente de corriger les nombreux défauts du jeu (y compris le manque de couleurs) au fur et à mesure de votre exploration.
Difficile de parler du jeu sans trop spoil, car après tout, il est fait de multiples surprises. Quoi qu'il en soit, il est étonnament stable pour un jeu à accès anticipé et, réellement, drôle.

Well,

Today I played one of the worst existing games in the world. The magic circle is glitched but it well glitched and on purpose. Actually it is a wonderful game very immersive and I firmly believe that it is impossible to understant the true beauty of this game before playing it. So if you can, go for it you will not be disappointed it you love video games for the experience and the trip in which it will take you.

I hope that further modifications will improve the gameplay (it is a little slow sometimes) and allow people to configure key bindings (I didn't find it ><).

Good game !!!

This game is great! It has lots of funny, witty dialouge and an interesting gameplay system. My only complaint is that there is a little input lag on the mouse, but that migh just be a problem with me.

I looove that game! It's also the first game I had the motivation to play through for the 100%
The graphics are pretty cool, the story is creative and the interaction of "player - story" is legit!

I'll give it a 9 out of 10 because there are some terrain errors going on. Would love to see more of it!

Holy cow.

If you are at all interested in game design, and the culture that surrouds it, you need this game in your life.

This is not a parody game. This is a game with a purpose. And it's damn fun to boot.

The basic concept is that you're a beta tester for a hilariously and tragically unfinished game trapped in development hell by its creators, who are all various shades of borderline-insane. Then, a being calling himself "The Pro" (voiced by Stephen Russell, the guy who played the hero in the original Thief Games) contacts you and tells you he wants you to fix this mess and get the game SHIPPED.

How do you fix it? By literally stealing "Life" from the nooks and crannies of the world, then using it to essentially hack into enemies to make them do what you need them to do. It's basically a big open-ended sandbox puzzle game. One filled with secrets, hidden abilities, and tons upon tons of audio logs detailing the game's spiral into madness.

Every time I thought I had the game figured out, it threw me another curveball, forcing me to rethink everything about it.

If you can think of a way to solve a problem, it's legit. And BOY are there a lot of possibilities. Army of fanged mushrooms? Easy. Demon-monkey-dogs you lob as if they were GRENADES? Knock yourself out. And that's just the simple stuff you can do. The vast amout of surprises and twists the game throws at you is sheer madness, and I love it. And that finale...I will not be forgetting that amazing conclusion any time soon.

As someone who is studying to hopefully develop games in the future, this game hit home in so many amazing ways, and I had an absolute BLAST with it. Don't look up anything more about the game. You'll just spoil yourself. This is a game that thrives on discovery and surprise. Anything you look up can ruin things for you.

So, if you're curious about game development, or you want to see crazy new story angles, are a fan of emergent gameplay, or just want a snarky and clever open-world puzzle game, you NEED this game in your life. TODAY.

Like, Right now. It's that good.

I won't spoil a thing. Know that I enjoyed this game immensely, it took turns that I didn't expect, chuckled at and genuinely enjoyed.

The art style can vary immensely, and for that it gets 20 style points. It succeeds in its goals of expressing how much time actually went on to the making of this game ~_^

The music, self referential and all gets 32 Final Fantasy arpeggios. While not the exactly the star of the show, it fathers the game experience and enriches the scenes when appropriate.

The gameplay is about 1,984°F. This game doesn't hold your hand, and in a way I'm glad for that. You'll feel like a genius when you solve what you need to do. If you're struggling, don't worry it's expected! Just keep at it and remember, use your brain. Seriously, use it.

The 'World Building' is about 1000 Skyrim Catacombs. When the game knuckles down and said <redacted>, I was genuinely moved. I spent the time, and even after an hour of play at 2 in the morning of course, I was scored an 8 of 10, I was happy. Because I knew, "This is mine."

I rate the story one parabola effect of the stanley variety, but honestly it's its own, better, thing. It genuinely interested me as I watched Jim Sterling play it, and I needed to know what was happening. I needed to know why I couldn't kill m'mum!

A night wellspent. And if this review talks you into playing the game, stop by and read it again once you're done!

Nett aber die 20€ einfach nicht Wert.
Man spielt es viel zu schnell durch und so aufregend ist es nun wirklich nicht.
Ich habe es in 4 Stunden durch und werde es auch nicht noch mal spielen.

Schade habe mir mehr erhofft besonders mit so einer guten Idee

Würde es nicht kaufen ist Geldverschwendung